Anita Hill took aim at Joe Biden once again Thursday, arguing that the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct might have begun sooner if the Democratic Party's 2020 front-runner would have done a better job of handling her claims of sexual harassment against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas more than 30 years ago. Writing
in the New York Times, Hill slammed the former vice president and U.S.
senator from Delaware, who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee in 1991 when Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment during
his Supreme Court confirmation process. “If
the Senate Judiciary Committee, led then by Mr. Biden, had done its job
and held a hearing that showed that its members understood the
seriousness of sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence, the
cultural shift we saw in 2017 after #MeToo might have began [sic] in
1991 — with the support of the government,” Hill, who is now a professor
at Brandeis University, wrote.
"If the Senate
Judiciary Committee, led then by Mr. Biden, had done its job ... the
cultural shift we saw in 2017 after #MeToo might have began [sic] in
1991." — Anita Hill, writing Thursday in the New York Times
“If
the government had shown that it would treat survivors with dignity and
listen to women, it could have had a ripple effect,” Hill continued in the Times piece,
which was titled, "Let's Talk About How to End Sexual Violence."
“Instead, far too many survivors kept their stories hidden for years.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden,left, served as chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 when Anita Hill, right, testified
allegations of sexual misconduct by then-Supreme Court nominee Judge
Clarence Thomas.(Associated Press)
Biden officially announced his bid for the 2020
presidency in April. During a private phone call with Hill beforehand,
he reportedly expressed regret over how she was treated during the
Thomas confirmation hearings but fell short of apologizing for his own
actions. “Sexual violence is a national crisis that requires a
national solution. We miss that point if we end the discussion at
whether I should forgive Mr. Biden,” Hill continued in her piece. “This
crisis calls for all leaders to step up and say: 'The healing from
sexual violence must begin now. I will take up that challenge.'” In
an interview with "The View" after announcing his 2020 candidacy, Biden
denied ever treating Hill badly during the 1991 hearings and praised
the professor for her contributions toward #MeToo. "She's one of
the reasons why we have the #MeToo movement, she's one of the reasons
why I was able to finish writing the Violence Against Women Act, she's
one of the reasons why I committed ... there'd never be a Judiciary
Committee I was on that didn't have women on it," he said. Biden
himself has not been accused of sexual harassment but since announcing
his candidacy he has received backlash for being overly touchy with
women and girls over the years. Fox News' Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
U.S.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., spoke out against the Democrats' claim that
America is facing a "constitutional crisis," saying Thursday that the
Dems are worried that Attorney General William Barr is "turning the tables" on the Obama administration's legacy. "The very reason Jerry Nadler is going after Bill Barr has nothing to do with the 8 percent of the Mueller report that hasn't been seen, and it has everything to do with the fact that Bill Barr is now turning the tables on the people in the Obama White House,
the people in the deep state, the intelligence community who
politicized a FISA court, and the investigators, I think, who departed
from normalized practice," Gaetz said on Fox News' "The Story with Martha MacCallum."
"The
very reason Jerry Nadler is going after Bill Barr ... has everything to
do with the fact that Bill Barr is now turning the tables on the people
in the Obama White House, the people in the deep state, the
intelligence community." — U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
Nadler, a New York Democrat who
chairs the House Judiciary Committee, declared a "constitutional
crisis" this week following his committee’s vote to hold the Barr in
contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena for Special Counsel Robert
Mueller’s unredacted Russia report and underlying documents. Gaetz
also took aim at former FBI Director James Comey, who appeared on a CNN
town hall telecast Thursday night, predicting that Barr would be coming
for Comey as well. "Of course it is not a coincidence that James
Comey is on, like, the Redemption Tour 2.0 right now, trying to
articulate his message," Gaetz said, "because he knows that Barr is
coming after Comey and his band of merry men, who largely paved the way
for Hillary Clinton to not face consequence, and then turned around and
really did the Russians' bidding for them by delegitimizing the election
process, and then after the election [of] the president, trying to
delegitimize Donald Trump."
"It is not a coincidence
that James Comey is on, like, the Redemption Tour 2.0 right now
... because he knows that Barr is coming after Comey and his band of
merry men, who largely paved the way for Hillary Clinton to not face
consequence." — U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
Gaetz
also touted the U.S. economy's performance under President Trump before
criticizing Democrats for their use of the word "crisis" --- and
chastising them for not addressing the immigration emergency along the
U.S.-Mexico border. "I
don't know that Democrats know what the word 'crisis' means," Gaetz
said. "Obviously they can't claim we have an economic crisis. We've got
growth at twice the rate that was expected under the Obama economy and
everyone is doing a lot better. "But we have a real crisis on the
border where 3,000 people a day are turning themselves in, into a system
that we cannot accommodate additional influx for. And now we have a
tortured interpretation of a constitutional crisis. I can assure you
that is not the case. The game you're watching is not the game that is
being played." Fox News' Talia Kaplan contributed to this report.
It is a "constitutional crisis," says Jerry Nadler. President Trump is "self-impeaching," says Nancy Pelosi. "We should be putting people in jail," says another Democrat, Gerry Connolly. In the wake of the House Judiciary Committee citing William Barr for contempt, the Democrats are using increasingly fiery language against a president who seems determined to defy their subpoenas. And
even the leadership is moving, rhetorically at least, from its previous
insistence that impeachment proceedings are a bad idea because they
will obliterate the party's agenda and lack bipartisan support. Maybe
that's because they're angry, or maybe it's just an attempt to placate
their most liberal voters. Perhaps the motivation is irrelevant. The New York Times says
the Democrats, "infuriated by President Trump's stonewalling," are
weighing a move "to bundle contempt citations for multiple Trump
administration officials into one overarching package that could be
referred to the Federal District Court here, in much the way Congress
looked to the courts to compel President Richard M. Nixon to turn over
tape recordings of his Oval Office conversations." And yet the
stakes in the latest subpoena fight, unlike Nixon shielding tapes of the
Watergate cover-up, are slight. The House Democrats want the unredacted
Mueller report, despite 98 percent of the obstruction of justice
section not being redacted. And they want their staff lawyers to be able
to question the attorney general, as opposed to just committee members. The
media are in full crisis mode as well. And that's a sharp contrast to
the way they covered the Republican House holding Barack Obama's
attorney general, Eric Holder, in contempt for refusing to turn over
documents in the Fast and Furious probe. That was portrayed mainly as a
partisan brawl, without such headlines as "Clash Between Trump, House
Democrats Poses Threat to Constitutional Order," in the Times. And
nothing ultimately happened to Holder, just as nothing is likely to
happen to Barr. I happen to think Congress has a legitimate right
to demand documents and testimony in overseeing the executive branch,
regardless of which party is in charge. But there's also such a thing as
political overreach. If the DOJ were withholding the Mueller report,
that would be one thing. To escalate over the 2 percent of the
obstruction section that is redacted is quite another. President
Trump is baiting the Democrats, and they know it. He'd love for them to
go down the impeachment path, which would fire up his base and lead to
his ultimate acquittal. He'd be happy to spend 2020 running against
overzealous Democrats, Nancy and Jerry, Mueller and the media. Rich Lowry made a trenchant observation in his Politico column that applies both to the subpoena battle and the Times story about Trump's massive business losses. "There
really are no Trump mysteries," he writes. "His flaws aren't hidden
away. He often attests to them himself, or demonstrates them publicly
... "No blockbuster report has more than a passing effect because
each dispatch is, ultimately, another dot in a pointillist portrait of
the president that was largely completed long ago. "This
is also why the hope that we are one investigation, tax return, or
subpoena away from the revelation that will finally bell the cat and
bring Trump down — or even make a difference — is almost certainly
forlorn. What would be devastating material against anyone else loses
all shock value." The Mueller report didn't topple Trump. Neither
will the redacted portions, his tax returns or any other secret
document. If the Democrats want to oust the president, they’re going to
have to do it the old-fashioned way next year.
Former FBI Director James Comey described deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as not having “strong character” Thursday while appearing on a CNN town hall telecast. “I
think people like that, like Rod Rosenstein, who are people of
accomplishment but not real sterling character, strong character, find
themselves trapped. And then they start telling themselves a story to
justify their being trapped which is, 'Yeah, he's awful but the country
needs me,’” Comey told host Anderson Cooper. Cooper brought up Rosenstein as Comey was responding to a question about a recent op-ed he penned, in which he wrote that the president “eats your soul in small bites.” “Republicans
are doing this in Congress. ‘Yeah, it's awful, but if I speak I'll get
defeated and this nation needs me here right now.’ So they start to make
little compromises to stay on the team. Talk about collusion,
saying that's what I need to do to survive and in the process, he has
eaten their soul, they’re lost. So that's what happens to so many of
people,” Comey said. Rosenstein was honored with a Department of
Justice send-off on Thursday, after submitting his resignation to
President Trump last month. His departure will reportedly take effect
Saturday. Thursday was also the second anniversary of Trump firing Comey from the FBI. Attorney
General Bill Barr, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and FBI
Director Christopher Wray were on hand at the Rosenstein farewell,
touting his record and character throughout his career, but specifically
over the last two years. Rosenstein fell into the political
crosshairs throughout his tenure and was on the receiving end of the
president’s ire over the Russia investigation. Rosenstein had taken over
oversight of the investigation after Sessions recused himself from the
probe -- a decision that infuriated Trump. It
was early on in Rosenstein's oversight of the probe, in May 2017, that
Trump fired Comey. Just a week later, Rosenstein appointed Special
Counsel Robert Mueller -- Comey's former boss at the FBI. Rosenstein
watched over the probe until November 2018, when former acting Attorney
General Matthew Whitaker took over. Whitaker was ultimately replaced by
Barr. On CNN's Thursday telecast, Comey also told Cooper that he
tried to avoid becoming like Rosenstein and other "co-opted" members of
the administration by openly disagreeing with President Trump in the
Oval Office. According to Comey, Trump was equating the U.S. to "killers" like Russian President Vladamir Putin. "And
among the words were his saying we are the same kind of killers that
Vladimir Putin is. He was defending his moral equivalency between us and
Putin and I interrupted and said, 'Mr. President, no, we're not
the kind of killers that Putin is,'" Comey said. Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Former Vice President Joe Biden,left, served as chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 when Anita Hill, right, testified
allegations of sexual misconduct by then-Supreme Court nominee Judge
Clarence Thomas.(Associated Press)
