Graham Platner Admitted Buying Cocaine, Bragged About Doing Drugs During Military Leave

Maine’s embattled presumptive Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate discussed buying cocaine in Reddit posts and admitted drug use while backpacking during paid military leave, Washington Free Beacon reports.

Graham Platner, in since-deleted posts from 2020, recalled his travels through Europe just before leaving the Marine Corps in 2008.

“I was making a pretty penny doing just about nothing. Went backpacking through Europe on the government dime, walked the Camino de Santiago, did some drugs and had a blast partying it up in hostels across the continent,” wrote Platner, who posted on Reddit under the handle P-Hustle, according to Beacon reporter Chuck Ross.

Platner “highly” recommended the drug-fueled experience to other Reddit users, Ross reported late Monday.

“No regrets,” Platner wrote in February 2020.

Running to unseat five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the ex-Marine discussed buying cocaine in another post from around the same time.

Platner responded to someone who asked about a Coast Guard seizure of 12,000 pounds of cocaine valued at $312 million.

“Street value,” Platner wrote in July 2020. “I always wonder what street you’re buying your cocaine on, because it’s not the street I’m buying my cocaine on.”

The Beacon said it’s unclear whether Platner admitted his drug use to the military or if it would have affected his service status.

Platner’s posts suggest he took the drug-infused European trip at the end of his first deployment with the Marines, which ended in 2008.

After the Marines and a stint at George Washington University, Platner joined the Army in 2011.

The Marine Corps, which Platner joined in 2004, has a “zero tolerance” policy regarding illicit drug use, and those who violate the policy can be prosecuted under military law and kicked out.

“Any Marine caught using or selling drugs while attached to the Battalion will be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and processed for separation from the Marine Corps,” reads a Marine Corps memo on the topic.

The Beacon’s report on Platner’s posted drug-use history comes in the wake of weekend reporting about his alleged marital infidelities.

Platner’s wife had reportedly alerted his campaign last year about sexting he had done with women online that she discovered on his phone.

As for Platner’s day-to-day-reported alleged flaws, frequent Fox and Tucker Carlson contributor Glenn Greenwald says Mainers don’t care.

“They hate the political establishment above all and think what DC insiders in both parties have done is far worse than some old tattoos during war, or ‘sexting,” Greenwald wrote Monday. “The national media never really came to terms with how their insular affluent DC circle and its various incestuous mores are on an utterly different planet than what most voters care about.”

Greenwald actually compared Platner’s alleged political misfortunes to Trump’s, saying that political pundits had falsely predicted Trump’s demise once he criticized John McCain’s military record during what became his first successful campaign for the presidency.

Trump was also predicted to have been a loser when a month before the 2016 election the so-called Access Hollywood tape in which he made a crude remark about women surfaced.

Again, it made no difference in his political fortunes, as he went on to beat Hillary Clinton despite pundits saying that was absolutely the end of his campaign.

In an Orwellian contortion, it’s almost as if bizarre behavior can have the effect of humanizing a candidate in the eyes of voters.