Former Vice President Joe Biden hired a “senior adviser” on Wednesday who said in 2017 that no one who has been “accused of sexual harassment or assault” should run for public office.
Karine Jean-Pierre, who was then the chief public affairs officer for left-wing MoveOn.org, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union that even if nothing had been proved against a candidate, the mere accusation of sexual impropriety should be disqualifying.
Tapper asked Jean-Pierre to respond to a case in which a female Democratic candidate for Congress in Kansas named Andrea Ramsey dropped out of the race because of past accusations that she had sexually harassed a male subordinate.
Calling the accusations “a lie,” Ramsey also said that while it was good that victims were coming forward, Democrats had gone too far by adopting a “zero tolerance standard” even in the case of “false allegations.”
The exchange was as follows:
Tapper: Does [Ramsey] have a point? Has the pendulum gone too far?
Jean-Pierre: No, look. I think we’re at a point in time in this country where the “Me Too” movement has really take — has really gotten some traction and we’re finally listening to victims, whether they’re women or men.
And I think if you’re running for office, you can’t have been accused of sexual harassment or assault. And I think that we have to really take that next step here and make sure that it doesn’t happen with anyone in office or out of office.
Fox News documented several other cases in which Jean-Pierre tweeted, or said, “Believe women,” and words to that effect.
Biden has been accused by former Senate staffer Tara Reade of sexually assaulting her in 1993. He denies the accusations. Reade’s lawyer has asked Biden to open his Senate files, currently at the University of Delaware.
Jean-Pierre has also worked for several other Democratic campaigns, as well as the Obama White House.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.