Senator Joni Ernst.
In an interview published tonight by Bloomberg News, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst said she was raped by a boyfriend when she was a student at Iowa State University.
Ernst told a Bloomberg reporter she broke up with the abusive man she dated in college and got help from the campus counseling center in Ames, but Ernst did not report the incident to police.
Ernst told Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs, a former Des Moines Register reporter, that she had not been ready to openly discuss that incident or details of her 26-year marriage, but is doing so now after court papers related to her divorce became public documents. Ernst said during the Bloomberg interview that people know her situation now and that may force her to talk about it publicly.