Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat running to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins, wrote in now-deleted Reddit posts that he bought cocaine and used drugs while backpacking through Europe on paid military leave, and declared he had "no regrets" about any of it.
The posts, dating to 2020, surfaced in a Washington Free Beacon report that adds yet another layer to a candidacy already buckling under the weight of scandal. Platner's campaign did not respond to questions about his drug use. The Pentagon also declined to comment.
For voters in Maine, the oldest state in the nation by median age, the revelations land in a political environment where cocaine remains flatly illegal and where the Marine Corps enforces what it calls a "zero tolerance" policy on illicit drugs. Platner served in the Marines from 2004 until his first deployment ended in 2008, then joined the Army in 2011 after a stint at George Washington University.
Posting under the Reddit handle "P-Hustle," Platner described the tail end of his Marine Corps service in terms that would make a recruiter wince. In a February 2020 post, he recalled his time just before leaving the Marines:
"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."
He capped the post with two words: "No regrets."
Then, in July 2020, another Reddit user posted about a Coast Guard seizure of 12,000 pounds of cocaine valued at $312 million. Someone in the thread used the phrase "street value." Platner jumped in with a comment that went beyond casual banter.
"I always wonder what street you're buying your cocaine on, because it's not the street I'm buying my cocaine on."
The posts have since been deleted. The Free Beacon published screenshots.
Platner's breezy tone about doing drugs during paid leave sits uneasily against the Marine Corps' own written policy. A Marine Corps memo on substance abuse states plainly:
"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."
Whether Platner ever disclosed his drug use to the military remains unclear. Whether the Marine Corps or Army took any action related to it is also unknown. The Free Beacon reported that neither the Pentagon nor Platner's campaign addressed those questions.
The gap matters. A man now asking Maine voters to send him to the United States Senate has a pattern of making inflammatory statements online and then deleting them when they become politically inconvenient. The cocaine posts fit that pattern exactly.
The drug admissions arrive in the middle of a campaign already struggling to contain a cascade of self-inflicted problems. Platner's campaign acknowledged over the weekend that he exchanged sexually explicit text messages with at least six women shortly after he got married in 2023.
His wife, Amy Gertner, who also works for the campaign, flagged the messages last August, before Platner officially launched his bid. She has appeared in multiple campaign videos discussing her fertility struggles and introduced Sen. Elizabeth Warren at a campaign event in April.
The sexting revelations prompted Platner to back out of a sympathetic television appearance as the allegations mounted. His campaign's strategy of putting Gertner in front of cameras to respond on his behalf drew sharp criticism from observers who saw a candidate hiding behind his wife rather than facing accountability himself.
And the drug posts are not even the most disturbing material unearthed from Platner's Reddit history. The Free Beacon reported that Platner, in other now-deleted posts, referred to rural Mainers as "racist," told rape victims they should "take some responsibility for themselves," and described in graphic terms how he masturbates in porta potties.
In one post, Platner mocked a soldier seen in a video being shot by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the same country where Platner later deployed, both as an Army soldier and as a contractor for Constellis. His comment on the video was blunt and profane: "Dumb motherf***** didn't deserve to live."
That remark, from a man who built his Senate campaign around his military service, is worth sitting with.
Before the sexting and the cocaine posts, there was the tattoo. The Free Beacon previously reported that Platner got a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo while on leave in Croatia in 2005. He has claimed he was drunk when he got it and was not aware of its Nazi connections until reporters brought it to his attention last year. He has since covered it with a "Celtic knot."
Platner has been on the campaign trail for nine months. In that time, voters have learned about the Nazi tattoo, the sexting with at least six women, the campaign's own prior knowledge of the sexually explicit messages, the mocking of a fallen soldier, the contempt for rural Mainers, the comments about rape victims, and now the cocaine admissions.
Each revelation follows the same arc: Platner posts something reckless, deletes it, and then either ignores questions or offers an explanation that raises more questions than it answers.
Cocaine has ended political careers before. Former Republican Rep. Trey Radel of Florida resigned from Congress in 2014 after he was convicted of buying cocaine during a sting operation. Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, was kicked out of the Navy in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine.
In both cases, the consequences were swift and public. Radel lost his seat. Biden lost his commission. The question now is whether Platner, who did not merely test positive but actively boasted about buying and using drugs while collecting a government paycheck, will face any consequence at all from his own party.
So far, the Democratic establishment has shown limited appetite for holding Platner accountable. Sen. Cory Booker admitted to having "concerns" about Platner but quickly pivoted to partisan talking points rather than calling for the candidate to step aside.
That response tells you something about where the incentives lie. Democrats badly want to flip Susan Collins' seat. The question is how much baggage they are willing to carry to do it.
Platner's refusal to answer questions about the cocaine posts is itself a kind of answer. A candidate who had a good explanation would offer one. A candidate who believed his own "no regrets" bravado would stand behind it.
Instead, the campaign has gone quiet, the same posture it adopted when Platner drew criticism for pushing his wife to the microphone during the sexting fallout. The pattern is not complicated. Say something indefensible. Delete it. Hope nobody notices. When someone notices, say nothing.
Maine voters deserve better than a candidate who treats accountability like a game of whack-a-mole with his own internet history.
At some point, "no regrets" stops sounding like confidence and starts sounding like a man who never learned the difference between getting away with something and being fit for public office.
