In the space of just a week, Capitol Hill has been turned upside down by sexual harrassment scandals. At least four members—Rep. John Conyers, Sen. Al Franken, Rep. Blake Farenthold, and Rep. Trent Franks—have been caught in varying degrees of malfeasance, and all but Farenthold have resigned. It is Franks, though, who is capturing the attention of the Twitterverse right now due to making a rather unusual request of a staffer. The Arizona Republican repeatedly asked an aide to act as a surrogate, at one point even offering her a reported $5 million.
At the mention of that price, Twitter users of course offered their own two cents on the matter.
I will get a sex change and carry his baby for $5 million. Absolutely.
$5m to rent my uterus for 9 months?? Sign me up lol
To the surprise of absolutely no one, this "request" turned out to be as sleazy as it sounds. Politico revealed that Franks allegedly made unwanted advances towards two female staffers in his office. The women in question revealed that their boss wanted to have them get pregnant by a more old-fashioned method than in vitro fertilization. A former staff member also claims that Franks attempted to convince an aide that they were in love with each other by encouraging her to read an article about love itself.
Franks' abrupt exit means that he likely didn’t find the surrogate he was looking for. If the tweets above prove anything, it's that there are plenty of willing people on Twitter who would help him out—for $5 million, anyway.