“When I talked to him, I said, ‘You need to send — I can’t pay for this,'” the woman said in several interviews with The Washington Post in recent days, adding that she also told Him: “We did it too. We both did it. We all know how babies are made.”
The woman who lived in the Atlanta area at the time, Says she became pregnant while she was out of work and had less than $600 in her bank account. About a week after the surgery, Walker mailed a $700 check via FedEx, the woman said. The Post reviewed an image of a check printed on an ATM slip with Walker’s name and the address where he lived at the time.
Copies of checks and deposit slips reviewed by the Post include Walker’s signature and name. It was deposited 9 days after the woman said she had an abortion. The Post reviewed a receipt for $575 at a women’s medical center that day. She said she didn’t know the exact cost of an abortion and estimated the amount she told Walker she needed based on an online search.
An extended discussion of the cost of surgery to terminate a first pregnancy has not been reported before. The woman and the person she spoke to requested anonymity to protect the privacy of herself and her loved ones.
As previously reported, the same woman also said that Walker had pressured her to have another abortion when she became pregnant for the second time. She chose to give birth to her son, now 10 years old. The woman sued Walker in New York in 2013 for child support, which Walker allegedly refused, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. Discuss sensitive details. Walker now says he’s a multi-millionaire, and he says he makes about $140,000 a year under the circumstances, the person said.
The new revelations deepen questions about Walker’s treatment of women and children, as well as the conflict between his public opposition to abortion and his alleged private conduct. Walker and his campaign have denied the woman’s claim that he wanted her to have two abortions, with Walker initially claiming he did not know the woman who was having the abortion.
“I don’t know anything about abortion for any woman,” Walker told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt last week after The Daily Beast first reported allegations of paying for abortions. “If that happens, I’d say that because there’s nothing to be ashamed of in there.”
Walker is running on a platform that opposes abortion in any circumstances, rape or incest or protecting the life of a mother. He has said he will vote for a national ban on the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy. He also criticized black men for not having parents — now the woman and his grown son, another mother, Christian Walker. Herschel Walker admitted to having four children and four different women.
Three women, including his first wife, told police Walker threatened them in various ways. Walker has not challenged his first wife’s claims, but he or his campaign has denied others.
The woman’s claim that Walker paid for the abortion was first reported by The Daily Beast, and the New York Times later reported the woman’s claim that Walker’s efforts to persuade her to have another abortion failed. The woman told The Washington Post that the reports accurately described her experience.
The woman initially supported Walker’s Senate campaign, but that changed after he announced he would ban all abortions.
The woman described an on-and-off relationship with Walker. The attorney representing her in the child support case, which lasted from November 2008 to September 2011, said in a statement at the time. In the weeks surrounding the 2009 abortion, the person she confided in at the time recalled explaining that she had forced Walker to send money, which the person remembered interpreting it as an attempt to hold the former footballer some of the blame for his actions.
“She was like, ‘As long as you send a check, I’ll do it,'” the person recalled. “He was like ‘I sent a check.’ She said, ‘It’s been seven days. I don’t get it.'”
Walker reported in August 2022 that his income and assets were worth between $27 million and $59 million, according to a financial disclosure form.
Walker is seeking to overthrow Democratic senators. Raphael G. Warnock Nov. Opinion polls suggest the race is nearing its end. Both sides see Georgia as a key battleground in a larger battle for control of the Senate. Walker and Warnock will debate in Savannah on Friday.
Anti-abortion groups have rallied to Walker’s side, as have some national Republican leaders. Some Republicans in Georgia said they feared it was wrong to promote an uncensored nominee.
On Tuesday, Senator. National Republican Senate Committee Chairman Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) at a rally in Walker, Georgia. Former President Donald Trump has discussed coming to Georgia for rallies in the final weeks of Election Day.
A central part of Walker’s pitch is that he has been battling and recovering from mental illness, and his team believes this story of redemption will resonate with Georgia voters. He authored a book called “Breaking Free,” published in 2008, which detailed his violent thoughts while battling dissociative identity disorder. He also said the incidents ended after he said he received professional help for his condition.
In 2009, at least two women Walker dated became pregnant, according to public records of one case and three people familiar with another pregnancy. One of them gave birth to a boy in February 2009, public records show. Later that year, the woman who spoke to The Washington Post began calling Walker repeatedly to tell him she was pregnant.
When Walker finally responded, he told the woman it was “not a good time” for the baby, she said. “We should do it the right way,” he added, meaning the couple could be planning a pregnancy at some point in the future, according to the woman.woman Said she did not know he had just given birth to a child born in February 2009.
The woman agreed to an abortion and said she repeatedly asked him for money to pay for it. The woman had less than $600 in her checking account, according to her account and ATM receipts. During the Great Depression, she said, she lost her job.
sky After the surgery, Walker mailed a check for $700 and a recovery card with a picture of a steaming cup of tea and Walker’s handwritten note. “Pray you feel better,” Signed, “H.” She said it was the first time Walker had sent money to the woman.
The card was seen as an admission of abortion, according to the woman and two others with contemporary memories of it.
The woman also provided a copy of a receipt from Atlanta Women’s Medical Center for $575 showing that she had paid for the surgery through her visa. card September 12, 2009. She was also given a booklet from the centre detailing “postoperative guidance”.
Walker also didn’t immediately return her calls when she became pregnant for the second time in 2011, she said. According to the woman and her confidant, Walker again said she should not have children. Again, Walker said it was “not a good time” for the baby, she said.
But the woman said she did not want another abortion, feeling that fate had stepped in and that the second pregnancy was a “signal” that she should raise her child.
During her second pregnancy, Walker said, she occasionally sent her checks, but the money didn’t arrive regularly, so she couldn’t rely on it. “It was just whenever he wanted to move around,” the woman recalled. Ultimately, the woman took Walker to court for child support, records show.
In May 2013, her attorney at the time, Andres Alonso, issued a statement on the case, saying: “The child’s mother is a graduate student … struggling to make ends meet.” “Unfortunately, sir. Walker has so far decided not to take full financial responsibility for the care of his alleged son.”
Walker was ordered to pay $3,500 a month in child support, according to people familiar with the matter. He also made a one-time payment of $15,000 to help cover hospital costs related to his son’s birth and early childcare, the person said. The child support payments were based on Walker’s annual income of about $140,000 in 2013, the person said.
Financial disclosures Walker filed for his Senate campaign this year show H. Walker Enterprises, LLC, which has annual revenue of $3 million, and that the entity is valued at between $25 million and $50 million, he reports.
Walker’s behavior toward his family came up repeatedly during the campaign. Walker has been harshly critical of absent black fathers, calling the behavior a “big, big problem.”
“The father left the Black family. He left the boys alone so they could be raised by their mom,” Walker said in a 2021 interview. “If you have a child with a woman, even if you have to leave the woman – even if you have to leave the woman – you won’t leave the child.”
But he only discussed one of his four children publicly until The Daily Beast published a story earlier this year about his second child.
He then confessed to three sons and a daughter, pointing to a form he filled out prior to his May 2018 appointment to the President’s Committee on Sports, Nutrition and Fitness, in which he noted that all of these he did not have. Evidence of withholding anything. These include a boy born in 2012; Christian Walker, 23, born in 2009; and a daughter in her 40s. Herschel Walker’s daughter has children of her own, making him a grandfather.
According to the woman and her confidant, Walker had very limited face-to-face contact with his 10-year-old son, despite his repeated invitations to be a part of his life, including only a few face-to-face meetings.
Walker’s grown son, a conservative media influencer, also recent be made public Criticize his father’s absence. “When you left us, you were not a ‘family man’ [have sex with] A bunch of women, threatening to kill us and make us move more than 6 times in 6 months to escape your violence,” Christian Walker wrote On Twitter after the Daily Beast article was published. “[H]You dare to lie and act as if you are a “moral, Christian, upright person.” You live a life that destroys the lives of others. how dare you. “
The Post has not independently verified Christian Walker’s claims. Herschel Walker was married to his mother, Cindy Grossman, from 1983 to 2002, according to public records.
The mothers of Walker’s other children declined to comment or did not respond to messages.
Grossman said in two television interviews in 2008 that Walker held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. Walker did not dispute the claim, but said he could not remember.
In May 2002, another woman, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, contacted police, accusing him of stalking her. In 2012, a third woman, Mika Dean, told police that Walker threatened to “smash her head off” when she told him she wanted to date someone else. Walker’s campaign has denied both claims.
In May 2021, Walker married his current wife, Julie Blanchard, with whom he has a long-term relationship.
Aaron Davis, Shayna Jacobs, Hannah Knowles, Cara McGoogan, Eva Ruth Moravec, Lori Rozsa, and Michael Scherer contributed to this report.
correct
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the senator’s national affiliation. Tom Cotton. Cotton represents Arkansas in the U.S. Senate. This version has been updated.