A former Republican state Senate candidate in Maine is the fourth woman to accuse former President George H.W. Bush of groping her.
Amanda Staples told Maine’s Portland Press Herald that the ex-president groped her in 2006 during a photo op at Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport while the two chatted about lowering taxes.
A spokesperson for Bush admitted after Bush’s second accuser came forward that the 93-year-old former president occasionally “patted women’s rears” because he has been confined to a wheelchair for five years and his arm reaches around the lower waist of most people he poses with in photos.
The former president “sincerely apologized” for the incident, the spokesperson added.
Bush has relied on a wheelchair to get around since he received a diagnosis for a Parkinson’s-like disease in 2012.
Staples, a former teacher, said Bush “grabbed my butt and joked saying, ‘Oh, I’m not THAT President.'”
The former aspiring politician, who was 29 at the time of the incident, added that she dismissed Bush’s actions as typical habits of a “dirty old man.”
Other women have come forward to accuse the president of groping or similar behaviors, including actress Heather Lind, actress Jordana Grolnick, and novelist Christina Baker Kline.