Democratic presidential candidate Biden denies sexual assault
Former vice president Joe Biden, a US Democratic presidential candidate, denied on the 1st that he had sexually assaulted or harassed an office worker while he was a federal senator in 1993.
【Deny sexual assault】
In an interview with Microsoft-National Broadcasting Corporation at home, Biden said: "I made it clear that never, never happened."
"I don't understand why 27 years have passed and this statement appeared," Biden said. He would not ask the former employee's "motivation" or "attack her".
This is Biden's first public response to rumors of sexual assault.
During Biden's preparations for presidential elections in early 2019, Tara Reid and several other women identified Biden as having "moved their feet" on them. In an interview with the media in March this year, Reed said that when she was a low-level employee of Biden ’s Federal Senator ’s Office in 1993, she once sent Biden a luggage according to the supervisor ’s request and was caught by Biden ’s chiral somewhere in the Senate office building. Invade.
Biden's campaign team previously denied sexual assault claims, but the pressure on public opinion has not diminished. Some Democrats called on Biden to clarify.
Biden is 77 years old and served as a federal senator from 1973 to 2009 and vice president from 2009 to 2017. He is currently the only presidential candidate for the Democratic Party and is likely to face the current Republican President Donald Trump in the presidential election scheduled for November.
Trump said in an interview with the media on the 1st that if the sexual assault statement is not true, Biden should "fight", "I am the complete victim of such nonsense and false accusations." Before entering politics, Trump was accused of misconduct by many women. He himself denied it.
【Find records】
Reed told the media in March that she had complained about Biden sexual harassment to the Senate Personnel Office.
Biden said in a television interview: "The former employee said she filed a complaint in 1993, but she has no record of the alleged complaint."
Biden said he will ask the National Archives and Records Administration to find out if there is that record, "all are public and I have nothing to hide". He believes that such records are kept by the National Archives and Records Administration.
However, the National Archives and Records Administration said that such complaints would only be kept by the Senate. Later that day, Biden sent a letter asking the person in charge of the Senate archives to find out if there were any relevant records.
Reuters reported that eight women, including Reed, claimed last year that Biden hugged, kissed, or touched them, making them disgusted. Reed was the first woman to identify assault.
The US "Business Insider" website reported in early April that Reed had reported the case to the Washington police. The report also mentioned that the statute of limitations for the alleged sexual assault has expired. (Wu Baoshu) (Special Feature for Xinhua News Agency)