Giffords’ Husband: Boehner Shunned Her
Husband?s Hurt: Astronaut Mark Kelly blasted House Speaker John Boehner for failing to see Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the hospital after she was nearly killed in a mass shooting in January. Image by getty images
The astronaut husband of Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) slammed House Speaker John Boehner, suggesting that the GOP leader did not make any effort visit her in the hospital after she was nearly killed in an assassination attempt, CNN reported.
Mark Kelly blasted Boehner for shunning the wounded congresswoman in a new book, “Gabby – A Story of Courage and Hope,” that he co-authored with Giffords, according to CNN.
“Considering that she was a member of Congress and he was the highest-ranking member, we thought he’d ask to visit Gabby or at least give a call to see how she was doing,” Kelly wrote in the book, according to CNN. “Our only contact with him had been a simple get-well card he’d sent a few days after Gabby was injured.”
Kelly, who recently retired from NASA, claimed Boehner avoided dropping by to visit Giffords in her Houston hospital bed even when he was in the city for the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament in April, according to CNN.
Boehner hit back at Kelly, saying he kept in touch with the couple and even met with Kelly recently about a memorial for Giffords’ aide who was killed in the Tuscon shooting.
“The Speaker and his staff have been in close contact with Rep. Giffords’ staff throughout this difficult ordeal,” a spokesman for Boehner said.
Giffords was badly injured earlier this year after being shot in the head by alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner, who opened fire at a public meeting she had been holding with constituents. Six people were killed and 13 were injured.
She recently opened up about trying to have a baby and her rocky road to recovery in a television interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
