The Slatest

Senator Who Told Kirsten Gillibrand He Liked “Chubby” Girls Was Hawaii’s Daniel Inouye

Inouye, center.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty

The Senate colleague who told New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand not to lose too much weight because he liked “chubby” girls was the late Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the New York Times reports in a blog post:

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York caused a commotion this month when she revealed in a memoir how her male colleagues felt free to comment rather vividly on her weight. The senator came under pressure to reveal the names of the perpetrators, but declined, setting off a guessing game in Washington.

Probably the most egregious incident was when a senior senator squeezed her waist and told her: “Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby!”

It turns out the senator was the late Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, the decorated veteran and civil rights hero, according to people with knowledge of the incident.

In 1992, a Republican campaign worker secretly recorded Inouye’s hairdresser alleging that he had forced her to have sex. But he won re-election that year, was never formally implicated in a crime, and continued to serve in the Senate until his death in 2012. (He was first elected in 1962.)