Former U.S. Sen. Martha McSally claimed Tuesday that she was sexually assaulted while out jogging that morning.
A man allegedly came up behind the former senator along the Missouri River, “engulfed” her in a “bear hug” and then “molested and fondled” her until she “fought him off,” according to a video McSally posted to Instagram. (RELATED: Lawsuit Claims Sheila Jackson Lee Fired A Staffer To Cover Up A Rape)
“I then chased him down,” she said in the video. “In this moment, I was in a fight, flight or freeze, and I chose to fight.”
McSally said she ran after her assailant and even threw her water bottle at him as he ran and hid in the brush.
As the man was hiding she called 911 and “waited for the police to come,” McSally said.
“I don’t think they found him, and I’m okay,” she continued in the video. “In this case, I felt like I took my power back. He tried to take power from me, but I turned it on him, and he was running from me instead of the other way around.”
The incident happened near Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park in Council Bluffs, Iowa, according to a report shared with HuffPost by the City of Council Bluffs Police Department.
On Wednesday, she wrote in a follow-up post that she was “a bit wired” for the rest of the day following the assault and that at one point the trauma overwhelmed her as she waited to board a flight. “A wave of emotion came up. I didn’t push it away. Tears came. I didn’t care what people around me thought. This is my journey,” she wrote.
In 2019, McSally said during a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing that she was raped by a superior officer while serving in the United States Air Force.
McSally served in the Air Force from 1988 to 2010, becoming the country’s first female combat pilot and retiring with the rank of colonel. In 2019, she was appointed to fill the Arizona Senate seat left vacant by the death of GOP Sen. John McCain. McSally lost to Democrat Mark Kelly in a special election the following year.
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