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Anita Hill said she could see herself voting for 2020 presidential hopeful Joe Biden if he became the Democratic nominee, even though he derailed her testimony against now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
“Of course I could,” she said in an NBC News interview that aired Friday when asked if she could “conceive of voting for” the former vice president if he ran against President Donald Trump.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991, Biden refused to allow testimony from several witnesses who could have corroborated Hill’s sexual harassment claims against Thomas, who was later confirmed to the court.
The Me Too movement and Biden’s presidential bid have renewed scrutiny on his actions during the hearing. Over the last few years, Hill — now a law professor at Brandeis University and an expert on issues surrounding workplace sexual harassment — has criticized Biden’s repeated attempts at apologies, calling them insufficient because they did not acknowledge his role in the hearing.
On April 30, Biden finally said, “I take responsibility that she did not get treated well.”
Hill told NBC News that she doesn’t believe Biden’s handling of the hearing “has disqualified him” and that “he’s perfectly capable of running for president.”
“I’m not even sure that anything I’ve said has actually hurt Joe Biden’s campaign,” she added. “He still is leading in the polls.”
But she reiterated previous concerns that the hearing was a missed opportunity to catalyze progress on combating sexual misconduct, and she said it “set us back because it became the model that other people followed.”
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
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