Democrats want to compare the sexual assault allegation against Biden to the many against Trump


Republicans have criticized Democrats for being hypocritical in their approach to the sexual assault allegation made by former Senate aide Tara Reade against former Vice President Joe Biden, especially in light of their response to similar accusations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh before his confirmation hearing in 2018. But Senate Democrats don't think the two cases are comparable, HuffPost reports.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who said Reade's allegations should be taken seriously, argued it was more "apt" to compare the situation to the many sexual assault and harassment accusations made against President Trump. In Kavanaugh's case, she said, "it was really clear Republicans wanted to fast-track" his confirmation. "They didn't have witnesses, they truncated the investigation so that we couldn't get the facts," she said.
From Hirono's perspective, Biden has actually "welcomed scrutiny," although it's not entirely clear why that makes Trump a better comparison.
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Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also doesn't buy the Kavanaugh comparison, noting "Biden has said to bring out the facts" and "let the public decide" if there's any evidence. "That's a lot different approach than we saw with Justice Kavanaugh," Durbin said. Read more at HuffPost.
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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
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