Joe Biden should’ve been disqualified for the way he treated Anita Hill. So our
franking because of a tasteless joke gets kicked out of the Senate but Biden
will probably be the Democratic nominee and hopefully become president.
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 2, 2020, at 6:15 PM, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
For Top Democrats, Joe Biden Is No Al Franken
By Branko Marcetic, Jacobin
02 April 20
Two years after forcing Al Franken's resignation from the Senate over sexual
misconduct allegations, prominent Democrats now have to decide whether to
stand on principle or keep silent about the latest assault accusations
against Joe Biden. We asked them - and so far, most are choosing to keep
silent.
n 2017, the resignation of Senator Al Franken (D-MN) over a series of
allegations that he had groped or kissed women without their consent was
viewed as a pivotal moment in the long history of sexual abuse on Capitol
Hill. As the allegations mounted, thirty senators from his own party, joined
by two independents, placed what he later called a "tremendous amount of
pressure" on Franken to resign, which he did.
Now, as a sexual assault allegation against Democratic front-runner and
former vice president Joe Biden trickles from the world of online news into
the mainstream media, all but one of those thirty-two senators are staying
silent.
Last week, Tara Reade, a former staffer of Biden's, alleged that in 1993, he
had pushed her up against the wall and groped and penetrated her with his
hands, telling her afterward, "You mean nothing to me." Although Jacobin was
unable to reach Reade and has not independently corroborated her story, the
Intercept's Ryan Grim, who originally broke the story, spoke to Reade's
brother and friend, who recounted hearing the story from her at the time.
Grim had originally also broken the story about then-Supreme Court nominee
Brett Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.
Biden has previously said that "for a woman to come forward in the glaring
lights of focus, nationally, you've got to start off with the presumption
that at least the essence of what she's talking about is real." His senior
adviser, Symone Sanders, whose personal website describes her as "a champion
for women," had said in 2018 she believed Ford's allegation, stressing that
she didn't "think anyone that has ever done that, whether it was once in
their life or fifty times, deserves to sit at the highest precipice of
power." Biden's campaign has called Reade's allegation "false."
Jacobin reached out to the twenty-nine Democratic and independent senators
who had called for Franken's resignation three years ago and are still in
office, in some cases leaving multiple voicemails and emails, and sometimes
speaking directly with staffers. Some of those senators have since endorsed
Biden for president, including Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Kamala Harris
(D-CA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ). Of those twenty-nine, only one - Ohio's
Sherrod Brown - offered a statement in response:
"Every woman has a right to be heard without fear of intimidation or
retribution, and I will always fight for that right."
Perhaps the most surprising silence came from Senator Gillibrand, who has
carved out a profile as a champion of women and sexual assault victims.
Gillibrand has fought for years to ensure accusers in the military can be
heard and see justice, and she was the first senator to call for Franken's
resignation in 2017, without an investigation into the allegations first.
"We must not lose sight that this watershed moment is bigger than any one
industry, any one party, or any one person," she wrote in a Facebook post at
the time. "We have to rise to the occasion, and not shrink away from it,
even when it's hard, especially when it's hard."
Gillibrand later said that Franken, someone she considered a personal friend
and an effective legislator, "wasn't entitled to me carrying his water, and
defending him with my silence." Though she suffered political backlash for
the decision, with major Democratic donors and bundlers vowing never to back
her again, Gillibrand stressed she had "no regrets" and, if she could go
back and change anything, she "might have done it sooner."
Gillibrand endorsed Biden a little over a week ago, saying he would "be a
champion for women." The senator's team did not appear to be aware of the
sexual assault allegation when Jacobin reached out late last week, her press
assistant welcoming an offer to share Reade's recent interviews. Though
Jacobin was told Gillibrand's team would see if they could provide a
statement by Monday, and despite multiple phone calls and emails,
Gillibrand's office has not yet offered a response, nor did they reply when
asked if the senator was standing by her endorsement of Biden.
According to the New Yorker, Gillibrand was one of seven female Democratic
senators who confronted Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on December 1,
2017 about the Franken allegations, leading to his eventual resignation. The
magazine reported that the group grew only more determined when they learned
of a seventh accuser - one who, like Reade, was a former Senate staffer.
None of the five other members of the group who are still in Congress -
Kamala Harris (D-CA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Patty Murray (D-WA), Maggie
Hassan (D-NH), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) - offered a response to
Reade's allegation.
Cortez Masto never publicly called for Franken's resignation, but she did
say at the time that she was "disappointed & disgusted with the allegations"
against him and that "he should be held accountable." After he resigned, she
put out a statement declaring that "we must create an environment where
every woman or man feels empowered to come forward."
Though Cortez Masto has not weighed in on the ongoing Democratic contest,
Hassan and Harris have, endorsing Biden for president, and both Harris and
Cortez Masto are reportedly on Biden's short list for the vice presidency.
Sources told Mediaite the latter is one of Biden's "top three" for the
position, while Harris is one of a number of names being urged by Biden's
wealthy donors, according to CNBC. In calling for Franken to step down at
the time, Harris said that "sexual harassment and misconduct should not be
allowed by anyone and should not occur anywhere."
In all, eleven of the thirty-two Democratic and independent senators who
called for Franken's resignation have formally endorsed Biden, with two of
them now gone from Congress. One endorser is New Jersey senator Cory Booker,
who has said Biden would "restore honor to the Oval Office," and had earlier
praised Franken for doing "the honorable thing" and resigning, calling for
Donald Trump to "do the same thing," owing to the "more serious allegations
against him." Another is California's Dianne Feinstein, who had said about
the Franken allegations that "the American people don't look lightly on
these kinds of actions, no matter who they're committed by." Still another
is Tom Carper, Biden's Delaware colleague for seven years, who had found the
allegations against Franken "deeply troubling."
One notable silence came from Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose coveted
endorsement continues to elude both Democratic candidates left in the race.
Though Warren had lagged behind other Democratic woman senators to call for
Franken's resignation, an aide told the Boston Globe she had personally
phoned him to urge him to resign, and she made the issue of gender
discrimination a cornerstone of her presidential campaign in 2020.
Warren received plaudits for her takedown of billionaire Michael Bloomberg
in the Democratic debates over his long history of misogyny, at one point
confronting the former New York City mayor over his alleged instruction to a
pregnant employee to "kill it," referring to her pregnancy. When asked by a
debate moderator what her evidence was for the charge, Warren replied, "Her
own words." She repeated that point in a testy post-debate exchange with
former MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews, telling him, "I believe the woman, which
means he's not telling the truth." She later told Rachel Maddow the attacks
were aimed at bringing down Bloomberg's campaign, because he was "the
riskiest candidate," as his "history with women," among other things, meant
"he could never launch any of those attacks against Donald Trump."
In an interview with Hill.TV's Rising, Reade alleged that when news outlets
ignored her, she went to senators Harris and Warren with her story. She got
no response from Harris's office, she said, while Warren's office sent her a
contact form letter telling her to get in touch with her local
representative. Despite multiple requests for comment, Warren has not yet
issued a response to Reade's allegation, nor commented on this particular
charge.
Also silent has been Bernie Sanders, the only one of Biden's challengers
left in the Democratic contest. In the midst of the Franken allegations,
Sanders had initially put out a statement calling sexual harassment
"completely unacceptable" and calling for an Ethics Committee investigation
into the first accusation against Franken. As the number of allegations
piled up, he called on Franken to do "the right thing" and resign, and later
said Trump should "think about doing the same thing" due to the assault
allegations against him. Sanders's DC office declined to respond to
questions about Reade's allegation, saying all questions about Biden should
be directed to the campaign, which hasn't responded to multiple enquiries.
Others who are silent now may have reconsidered the notion of automatically
believing the stories of sexual assault accusers since pushing Franken to
leave the Senate. Last year, seven of those senators expressed regret for
having called for Franken's resignation, including Tom Udall (D-NM) and
Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), both of whom have endorsed Biden, and Vermont
senator Patrick Leahy, who called it "one of the biggest mistakes I've
made."
Even so, Leahy has expressed sympathy with women on the other side of sexual
misconduct in recent times, saying more senators "should have believed"
Anita Hill when she came forward with sexual harassment charges against
now-Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, and calling for delaying
Kavanaugh's confirmation vote, as "we cannot brush aside these
extraordinarily serious allegations in an unseemly rush." Yet Leahy's office
did not appear to take the allegation against Biden seriously, his
spokesperson asking if Jacobin was "a right-wing screed" before saying Leahy
was busy with Appropriations Committee business all weekend and there was
little chance he would have a statement by today. An email forwarding an
interview with Reade and recent mainstream news coverage of her allegation
went unreturned.
The response from Leahy's office may reflect the dynamics of media coverage
of the race. While Reade's allegation was the talk of social media and some
left-wing outlets, like many real but unflattering stories about Biden, it
has primarily been covered by the right-wing media sphere, going almost
completely unmentioned in most mainstream reporting on the race, including
during Biden's Friday town hall on CNN and his Sunday appearance on Meet the
Press. Krystal Ball, who interviewed Reade on Rising, has said she offered
Reade's story to reporters in the mainstream press, but "heard back
crickets."
Biden has a fraught history on gender issues. He's been on the receiving end
of decades of feminist criticism for his support for abortion restrictions,
and he has long tried to shake off the stain of his handling of Anita Hill's
sexual harassment allegations, where he didn't believe Hill's story, blocked
witnesses from corroborating it under oath, and generally assisted
Republicans in neutering the effectiveness of her testimony. Upon launching
his campaign last year, a series of women came forward to accuse Biden of
inappropriately touching them, including Reade herself, who now says she
wasn't ready to tell her full story at the time.
As Reade's allegation slowly filters to the mainstream press, Democrats are
in a tricky position. On the one hand, Biden is the overwhelming favorite to
clinch the Democratic nomination, and speaking out against him, particularly
in an election year, means not just facing the wrath of powerful Democratic
donors and party leaders, but potentially alienating the next president.
On the other hand, since 2016 - driven by the deep, bipartisan outrage at
Trump's own history of sexual assault and misogyny, and the #MeToo moment in
late 2017 - the Democratic Party has rebranded as the party of women and
believing survivors, accompanied by a genuine realignment that has seen
women voters increasingly flock to the party. Democrats have made winning
over the kinds of conservative suburban women disgusted by Trump a key part
of their electoral strategy. They have done so by taking well-publicized
stands against Republicans accused of sexual misconduct, including alleged
pedophile Roy Moore, Brett Kavanaugh, and Trump himself, but they have also
earned themselves credibility by forcing Franken's resignation, showing that
not even high-profile Democrats could get away with such behavior.
If the party elects not to speak out on an identical allegation facing the
Democratic front-runner, or even chooses to stand by him and dismiss the
story out of hand, they risk not only damaging that credibility, but
undermining the ability of any future accuser, whether victimized by a
Democrat or Republican, to have their stories heard and be believed.
Democrats face a choice between principle and partisan hypocrisy. We may be
watching them make their choice in real time.
