A Democratic National Convention delegate and supporter of former Vice President Joe Biden resigned from his post in the New Hampshire legislature late Saturday after making a host of shocking and horrifying claims about Tara Reade, the woman who has accused Biden of sexual assault, including that the sex act in question, which Reade described in detail in her allegations, required Reade to “cooperate,” meaning she lied about the alleged attack.
New Hampshire state Rep. Richard Komi resigned from his position after tweeting late last week that Reade was just “looking for attention,” according to Fox News, and blaming Reade for, essentially, asking for her own alleged sexual assault.
Reade claimed to a progressive podcast in April that Biden pressed her against a wall before forcing his hand up her skirt and then fondling and penetrating her with his fingers. Reade has no concrete proof of her claims, but several of her family members, a coworker, and a neighbor say Reade gave them contemporaneous accounts of the alleged attack.
Komi had another theory about Reade’s interaction with the former Delaware Senator.
“Judged by the position of the female vagina, it will not be easy for anyone to just put their finger into the vagina unless their [sic] is some cooperation from the female herself. That is why I believe Tara Reade’s allegations [sic] is false. She is looking for attention,” Komi said Friday in what Fox News says is a “now-deleted Tweet.”
Komi’s claims are nothing short of shocking and representative of the pushback women often receive when alleging sexual assault — pushback that the #MeToo and other anti-sexual harassment campaigns were (ostensibly) formed to confront. Of course, Reade, who has accused the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee of sexual assault, has received none of the protections afforded to earlier accusers, likely because many of those who might be first to “believe all women” are Biden supporters.
But Komi’s claims were so outrageous that they immediately caught the eye of his superior in the New Hampshire legislature, who demanded his resignation.
“I am appalled by Representative Komi’s comments. They were dismissive and hurtful to survivors of sexual assault across the Granite State and across the country,” New Hampshire House Speaker Steve Shurtleff said. “The comments are not fitting for the New Hampshire House of Representatives and immediately upon learning of them I called him and asked Representative Komi to resign his seat.”
Komi later issued a tepid apology, admitting only that he worded his social media missives “poorly.”
“I also want to offer my sincere apologies to anybody whose feelings may have been hurt by the tweets. I am and will continue to be a supporter of victims of sexual and domestic assault,” Komi said in a statement to his colleagues in the New Hampshire legislature. “The tweets were very poorly worded and do not reflect who I am and what I stand for. I ask for the forgiveness of all who have been a victim of sexual or any other kind of assault.”
Komi is not the only delegate making outrageous claims about the Reade situation. According to reporter Glenn Greenwald, another Biden delegate demanded, Friday, that reporters investigating Reade’s claims be investigated by the FBI.
On the left: a Biden delegate demanding the FBI investigate journalists who reported on or even discussed Reade's accusations.
On the right: a Biden delegate arguing that the position of the vagina means Reade could not have been penetrated involuntarily & just wants attention: pic.twitter.com/LpJHRyx4yB
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 2, 2020
Biden unequivocally denied Reade’s allegations in an interview with MSNBC on Friday.
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