House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) doubled down on her support of former Vice President Joe Biden (D) after one of Biden’s former senate staffers has accused him of sexually harassing her in 1993.
The speaker was first asked about the allegation during an interview on Thursday morning, saying, “Well, I have great sympathy for any women who bring forth an allegation … I do support Joe Biden. I’m satisfied with how he has responded. I know him, I was proud to endorse him on Monday, very proud to endorse him, and so I’m satisfied with that.”
And during a press conference on Thursday, Pelosi doubled down on her defense of the former vice president.
Pelosi told a reporter, “I have complete respect for the whole #MeToo movement. I have four daughters and one son and there’s a lot of excitement around the idea that women will be heard and be listened to.”
She continued:
“There is also due process and the fact that Joe Biden is Joe Biden — there’s been statements from his campaign, not [just] his campaign but his former employees that ran his offices that there was never any record of this. There was never any record. And that nobody ever came forward or nobody came forward to say something about apart from the principal involved.”
Pelosi endorsed Biden in a video this week and in her Thursday press conference, she said, “I am so proud, the happiest day for me this week was to support Joe Biden for President of the United States. He’s a person of great integrity, of great concern for the American people.”
“I have complete respect for the ‘Me Too’ movement,” Speaker Pelosi says, adding that “there’s also due process” when asked about a lingering sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden.
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 30, 2020
Biden’s campaign has denied the allegation. https://t.co/iqYKts7FTI pic.twitter.com/uu2nPAZo5x
Biden is accused of sexual assault by one of his former staffers, Tara Reade, who first came forward in April of 2019 to accuse Biden of inappropriate touching. Her story has since evolved into one in which Biden sexually assaulted her in a Senate office building.
When Reade’s story first spilled into the mainstream news cycle, the former vice president’s campaign denied the claim, saying, “What is clear about this claim: it is untrue. This absolutely did not happen.”