2/9/2018
A second member of the Trump administration has resigned after being accused of spouse abuse.
David Sorenson is the second administration official to resign this week over domestic abuse allegations. Sorensen’s job with the Council on Environmental Quality did not require a security clearance, but his background check was ongoing. The Washington Post first reported Sorensen’s resignation Friday evening, and reported that his ex-wife, Jessica Corbett, alleged that “he ran a car over her foot, put out a cigarette on her hand, threw her into a wall and grasped her menacingly by her hair while they were alone on their boat in remote waters off Maine’s coast, an incident she said left her fearing for her life.”
Corbett released a statement on Medium saying she stands by her allegations, saying her story is “messy, humiliating and tragic, but it’s my truth.”
Sorensen denied the allegations. “I have never committed violence of any kind against any woman in my entire life,” Sorensen wrote in a statement. “In fact, I was the victim of repeated physical violence during our marriage, not her,” he said, adding that he had consulted with an attorney and was “considering legal options to address her defamation.”
Sorensen alleged the incidents of what he called Corbett’s domestic violence and abusive behavior “are too many to recall,” but included several occasions when she punched him. He alleged she hit him with a “flurry of punches” on three occasions in a single day because he had asked if she would mind if he went to the gym before breakfast. He also alleged she attempted to block the driveway to prevent him from driving away after she had punched him in the face repeatedly after a fight, forcing him to pull the car forward over the lawn, and that she ran after the car and injured herself in the process. He showed photos of what he alleged was evidence of her violence against him, including one showing redness and a cut behind the left eye from what he said was a punch to the face in 2015 and another showing a scrape on left cheek from what he said was a punch to the face in July 2016.
Corbett told the Post in response to Sorensen’s allegations that her violence didn’t not go beyond slapping him, adding that several of the incidents involved alcohol and that she slapped him multiple times after he called her a vulgar term. “I know what he is saying is full of lies. The truth proves itself.”
According to the Post, Corbett told the FBI about her allegations during an October 2017 interview for a background check of Sorensen. The White House said in a statement that it had been made aware of the allegations before The Washington Post reached out regarding the story. “Before we were contacted by the media, we learned last night that there were allegations,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said in a statement Friday. “We immediately confronted the staffer, he denied the allegations and he resigned today.”
