Through an attorney she retained to defend herself against a colleague's ethics complaint, Republican Sen. Gretchen Hoffman said Saturday that she was in the right.
During a budget debate Tuesday night, Hoffman tweeted that DFL Sen. Barb Goodwin called people with mental illness "idiots and imbeciles." But Goodwin had disparagingly noted were used historically in her floor speech.
That's not the way Hoffman sees it. She has been quiet since Goodwin complained on the floor and filed an ethics complaint against her but through attorney, Fritz Knaak, she said she had every right to be angry at Goodwin.
"It is our assessment that it is Senator Goodwin's comments on the floor, as opposed to Senator Hoffman's understandable reaction to them, that were misleading," Knaak wrote.
He also asked for a speedy hearing because a "delay would be an effort to embarrass Senator Hoffman by allowing these purported allegations to linger."
Here's the letter from Hoffman's attorney:
