WASHINGTON — The controversy surrounding Graham Platner, a Maine Senate candidate, continues as his presence on the messaging app Kik remains active.
Despite facing significant backlash over allegations of sending explicit messages to multiple women while married, Platner’s account, under the username “Phustle0331,” is still operational. The account, which The Post confirmed through a temporary profile that was subsequently deleted, has been active for over 3,600 days as of Monday.
The profile features a photo of Platner shirtless, wrapped in a towel, with visible tattoos. Notably, the image includes a symbol on his chest resembling a Totenkopf or “death’s head,” historically associated with the Nazi SS. Platner claims he was unaware of its Nazi connections and has since covered the tattoo with new ink.
Kik is notorious for facilitating discreet interactions, as it allows users to register without revealing phone numbers or valid email addresses. The app has also come under fire in the past for enabling child exploitation activities.
The Wall Street Journal has previously verified that “Phustle0331” is indeed Platner’s account. This username bears a resemblance to the “P-Hustle” alias he employed on Reddit, where he was known for posting contentious remarks, now largely removed from the platform.
His Kik user ID, Phustle0331, was previously confirmed by the Wall Street Journal to be his account. It is also similar to the “P-Hustle” Reddit handle that Platner used for wild screeds that have since been mass-deleted from the forum platform.
Here’s the latest on lefty Senate candidate Graham Platner’s sexting scandal
On Saturday, the outlet and the New York Times released bombshell reports on how his wife approached his campaign and flagged sexually explicit messages he had sent to other women. Platner has been married to Amy Gertner since 2023.
There had been accusations that Platner sexted with up to a dozen women, but a current campaign official clarified that it was only up to six and that he stopped the promiscuity before launching his campaign last year.
Publicly, Platner denied the stories from both outlets, despite a campaign official confirming some details about it. He also had his wife cut a video scolding the media for delving into their personal lives and blasting a former campaign political director for betrayal.
“No,” Platner told reporters when asked if the stories were true. “This is the amazing part. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times ran stories without any evidence besides the gossip from a former staffer. I’m sorry, that’s frankly journalistic malpractice.”
The sexting scandal is just the latest roiling Platner’s campaign. In addition to the Nazi tattoo, Platner faced a steady stream of revelations from archives of his mass-scrubbed Reddit account.
“You don’t have much experience with Latin American hookers, do you?” Platner wrote in one Reddit post, reacting to a user who had concerns about prostitutes in Colombia.
“I’ve heard that idiotic sentiment made within the confines of the the [sic] military. ‘If you can’t remain faithful to your wife, how can you remain faithful to your comrades?’” he wrote in another story about Secret Service officers paying prostitutes. “Well, I have many good buddies who lied and cheated with women, and yet were straight shooting hard men when it came to their work.”
“I find it is a sentiment only held by moral relativists who need something to cry about, intelligent people realize they are not mutually exclusive.”
Platner also had Reddit posts downplaying sexual assault, defending soldiers urinating on dead Taliban soldiers, calling war “the most enjoyable experience,” musing about graffiti of men’s genitalia arguing that white Americans “actually are” racist and stupid, among others.
Platner has a 7.8 percentage point polling edge over incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls.
