The Eva Murry Allegation
Another allegation of Biden misbehavior that is another category altogether.
Quite frankly, I don’t especially want to write about this story, but given the context of the allegations made by Tara Reade, the fact that it was mentioned in a post by James Joyner before the story was updated, and interest shown in the comments several posts over the last two days, here we go.
Over the weekend another charge was leveled about inappropriate behavior by Joe Biden. In this story, circulated by Law and Crime, the following allegedly took place:
A woman says she was sexually harassed by presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden when she was 14 years old.
The woman, Eva Murry, told Law&Crime that Biden complimented her on the size of her breasts at the First State Gridiron Dinner & Show in 2008, a long-running roast of and party for politicians, journalists and prominent business figures held each year in Delaware. Murry says she remembers the event occurring sometime around May of that year.
[…]
“I remember walking into the lobby and being in awe of all the people in such fancy clothes,” Murry said in an interview. “Our two parties of people gravitated towards each other and everyone started saying their hellos. When it was Biden and my aunt’s turn to say hello he quickly turned to me and asked how old I was. I replied with my age and he replied with the comment ‘Fourteen? You’re very well endowed for 14!’ I was confused but it was definitely weird, he looked me up and down and hovered his eyes on my chest so I had some clue [about] the notion of his comment but didn’t fully understand at the time. We quickly separated from his area after the encounter.”
The piece described this as “sexual harassment” and this led to James’ post about how we talk about these things. I have to agree that the comment, as alleged, was gross, rude, inappropriate, and creepy. However, I cannot see how it fits any definition of sexual harassment. It certainly isn’t something that would be disqualifying for someone seeking office.
But, of course, definitional issues aside, it is unclear that it even happened.
Fox News reports: Dinner organizer says Biden was not at 2008 event where he was accused of sexual harassment
A past organizer for Delaware’s First State Gridiron Dinner now says Joe Biden did not attend the event in 2008, after a woman recently claimed the former vice president and senator sexually harassed her there, Fox News has learned.
[…]
Local news reports from the time said Biden was having sinus surgery earlier that week — to address issues including a deviated septum — and was scheduled to be out of work for the whole week.
At the time, his spokeswoman said that she “anticipates that he’ll be out for the remainder of the week recovering at his home in Wilmington,” according to a report in the News Journal at the time.
This caused Murry’s aunt, Christine O’Donnell, and a person who states she remembers Murry talking about the event at the time, to respond.
Asked on Sunday about the organizer’s statement that Biden never attended that year, O’Donnell stood by the accusation, while acknowledging to Fox News that it could have been a different year.
“Yes, it could have been another year. So what? She was a teenager when I ran for office. It doesn’t make it okay,” she wrote to Fox News. ”It happened when I was running for office against him. If it was 2007, that makes it even worse.”
But,
Biden’s schedule from the day of the dinner in 2007, though, placed him in Iowa that evening.
O’Donnell was a candidate for the GOP nomination for Senate in 2006 (she lost badly in the primary) and was the GOP nominee to run against Biden in 2008. (She later came to national prominence in competing for Biden’s seat in a special election as Tea Party Republican, famously stating “I am not a witch” in a campaign ad).
I simply do not know what to make of Murry’s recollection or of the fact that six people were willing to go on the record stating that they had contemporaneous memories of Murry describing the event. The most likely explanation is that she confused someone else for Joe Biden and it became an article of faith in her circle of family and friends that it was Biden. This seems more likely to me than that this is some organized effort to get Biden.
I will say that I don’t find O’Donnell herself to be an especially credible individual based on my recollections of her 2010 bid for the Senate.
Regardless of any of that, I will reiterate that while I find the alleged comments to be uncomfortable and cringe-inducing, I still don’t see how they would rise to the level of harassment, or that we should see them as disqualifying. This strikes me, even without all the weirdness, as being nowhere near the same category of allegation as those made by Reade.
As I pointed out in the Biden v. Kavanaugh thread, I think the odds are very good that this accusation is a complete fabrication.
But apart from that, if it happened as Murry told it, how on earth is this not sexual harassment? James Joyner argued the same thing in another post (i.e. Biden’s alleged remarks didn’t rise to the level of harassment). But I just don’t see it.
Are you using “harassment” in a narrow legal sense?
Genuine question.
First, people lie. This person tells a tall tale about a Vice Presidential candidate who did not attend an event in question and then has her aunt, a member who ran for the US Senate as a far-right Republican, backs her claim by saying, essentially, “maybe she was 13 or 15 or 16 – we don’t know but we’ve spread this story to other people.” It’s ridiculous. We have to call this out for what it is — a woman lying about whether a candidate made an inappropriate remark.
Corroboration is not the same as contemporaneous disclosure. The fact that Murry told people that Biden said this to her, at the time, does not mean there is corroboration when one of those folks comes forward to say this happened. Corroboration is evidence supporting a claim. Now, O’Donnell corroborates Murry’s allegation but we compare that with Biden’s calendar and his travel schedule and the like. But these other folks do not corroborate Murry’s claim. If anything, they corroborate that Murry defamed Biden, assuming Biden did not attend the event in question.
@drj:
Yes, that is my intent. The term has a legal significance that matters, I think. And maybe I am misunderstanding legal application, but I tend to understand it as a workplace issue.
Republican scum are desperate…we already know that Trump is afraid of Biden, so it looks like the GOP will do anything it can to try to hurt Biden…next thing you know, we’ll get a report from a psychic medium that from beyond the grave Phyllis Schlafly is claiming that Biden felt her up…
@Steven L. Taylor:
OK, thanks. Personally, I’d argue that in this context (judging the suitability of a political candidate) it’s the morality of the behavior that counts rather than the question whether or not said candidate managed to avoid violating a technical statute. But that’s my two cents.
By the way, this:
…introduces at least one additional lie (O’Donnell said she witnessed Biden’s remark) to the charitable explanation. O’Donnell would have recognized Biden for sure.
At some point, a lying liar who lies becomes more probable than repeated memory lapses. Personally, I think we reached that point here.
I understand and appreciate that you are trying to stay within the bounds of publicly available evidence. But it seems to me to be speculation to say,
Certainly not well organized. But given the pervasiveness of Republican ratfwcking and O’Donnell’s Loony Toon history, which you note, a presumption of innocence does not seem warranted.
The “contemporaneous” tellings happened well after the event. She claimed she didn’t even understand what he meant at the time. This is all a lie!
A couple of points:
1. Christine O’Donnell was running against Joe Biden in 2008 for the Senate. Her competitor made a crude comment about her niece and she didn’t use it politically? Seriously? On what planet does that happen? If she literally witnessed it, as she said, why didn’t she scream it from the rooftops?
2. Biden has proven he wasn’t there at both the dates they said it was possible. It should be very easy to find an event where Biden and O’Donnell (with her niece) attended.
3. This, again, goes against all we know about Biden historically.
4. Whitewater, Mena, Vince Foster, I invented the internet, swiftboat, mustard on a cheesesteak, Muslim/Kenyan Socialist, tan suit, Benghazi, but her emails.
@An Interested Party:
Yes, otherwise they would never sink this low (*cough*)
@Kit: Touché…Republicans ALWAYS sink this low…
“This seems more likely to me than that this is some organized effort to get Biden.”
Why? Entirely serious question. What about this makes it seems likely to be anything other than an organized effort to get Biden?
Also, what @EddieInCA: said.
@EddieInCA:
An excellent point.
@gVOR08:
It all I can do, to be honest. Anything else is speculative.
@Moosebreath:
TBH, roping in 6+ people is a recipe for getting your scheme screwed up. I guess I can never get over the fact that at one point in time only two people in the whole world knew about Clinton and Lewinsky and yet, eventually, everyone knew.
It is just so implausible to me that this (a low wattage story with an odd champion) is some grand conspiracy. It seems more like some family legend. But, maybe it is O’Donnell and crew looking for attention.
I am not willing to speculate overmuch about these things in any event.
Someone should ask O’Donnell why she didn’t scream bloody murder about this at the time.
Christine O’Donnell? Credibility zero.
Biden is going to be smeared right and left until Tuesday, November 3rd.
If we learned anything from “but her emails” it is that no one should participate.
If we are to participate…every single story/post/comment should include a complete review of Trump’s history.
Everything that needs to be said about these allegations already has been, so I won’t add to that. However, when Steven said,
I was gobsmacked. To me, an adult complimenting a 9th grader on her breast development is absolutely disqualifying for public office. What adult of reasonable intelligence and character would do such a thing?
@drj:
Sure. But “sexual harassment” has a specific meaning. Making a creepy comment a teenager who doesn’t work for you is creepy; it’s not coercive.
@EddieInCA: @CSK: That O’Connell didn’t use this at the time is, in my view, the biggest red flag.
That a 14-year-old got the specific event wrong doesn’t bother me in the least. If this actually happened, it’s completely plausible to me that she’d remember the incident and the fact that it was at a big political gathering she attended with her aunt.
@Rick Almeida:
As someone on another thread on this noted, it’s far more likely that Biden said something on the order of “You’re developing into an attractive young lady. You’re going to have to beat the boys off with a stick in a couple of years!” than, “Damn, sweetheart, you’ve got a nice pair of tits!” The former would quite likely come across as creepy to a 14-year-old coming from a man in his 60s.
The former, surely, isn’t disqualifying. The latter would, at the very least, be a huge red flag. (But, of course, if the choice is between the guy who said that and Trump, I’m willing to live with it.)
@Rick Almeida:
This is partially why I try to avoid these stories. No matter what one says one is going to be accused of both over- and under-reacting.
But no, I do not think a singular statement of this nature is disqualifying, especially as reported.
I am not going to defend it, but it seems some level of proportionality is needed here.
This really doesn’t sound like Biden. “You look pretty grown up for 14, watch out for the boys”, “You’ve filled out for 14”, etc. would, and have a very different less-creepy (not uncreepy, but less-creepy) meaning.
Or it was a different event (and a comment that was probably less creepy). Six people coming forward tells me something happened, although since it is all starting with a 14 year old telling people about it, I don’t really know what. It seems more likely that the event was mixed up rather than the person.
I don’t think this is part of an organized effort to get Biden, but I do think that if this has entered the family lore this way, it’s an (entirely earnest) effort to add to his problems.
Let me be clear: I am not saying that Biden even met the young woman, let alone made the alleged comment. That said, speaking purely personally, I would consider any candidate who said such a thing to be wholly disqualified for public office. Other citizens are free to choose differently.
I’ve been a professor for 18 years now. I talk for a living, both in the classroom and in public. I know damned well that if you talk long enough, you’ll say something stupid. Been there, done that…and politicians talk way more than I do.
But to compliment anyone on their breasts in the 21st century is quiet beyond the pale to me.
@James Joyner:
The only plausible excuse O’Donnell would have for not throwing this at Biden at the time would be that her niece begged her not to do so, and she deferred to her niece’s feelings. I can see the niece wanting to put the whole incident behind her, and not wanting a huge, ugly situation to arise of which she would be the focal point.
But would O’Donnell be that considerate, especially if she had a grade-A weapon to use against Biden?
@James Joyner:
Perhaps. But noone here has used the term with sufficient consistency to suggest there is an agreed-upon definition.
If sexual harassment is a legal concept about workplace behavior and relations then Steven wouldn’t have felt the need to argue said that Biden’s alleged behavior did not rise to the level of harassment. Because – obviously – it didn’t occur in a workplace setting. Generally, we do not argue for the bleeding obvious.
And even in the legal, workplace-related sense, there is behavior that is defined as constituting sexual harassment that is not coercive (think “hostile work environment” – repeated suggestive remarks can be sufficient). So your definition doesn’t work either.
So what is the specific meaning?
FYI you folks trying to drag Trump into the conversation; this article is not about Donald Trump. It’s about Joe Biden and his continuous lewd behaviour. Perhaps he’s a little too old school and can’t unlearn his 60s-70s values. This poor behaviour combined with his occasional inability to finish a coherent thought frighten me. Do I want him as a leader of the USA? Resounding NO!
@Rick Almeida:
I would never do it and would find it problematic if someone around me did it. And, if one of the faculty at my university did it now, they would likely end up dealing with HR.
But would it be fireable? (This is, to me, another way of defining “disqualifying” in this context).
I guess I am ultimately asking whether one utterance of this nature is enough to bar one from office, and therefore to put an end to a political career. This strikes me as disproportionate.
@Dave: Without a doubt, Trump’s record on the treatment of women is beyond reproach.
If we had 100% disclosure of 100% of offenses we’d have 100% disqualification of 100% of political candidates.
Everyone in these comments has at some time said something to someone that made them feel ‘uncomfortable.’ This is ridiculous. This is not a reasonable or actionable standard. Every time we discuss this we’re playing their game.
The frustrating thing is that they are turning our own intellectual laziness against us, the utterly predictable result of treating every accusation equally. A rhetorical weapon meant to empower women is now being used against women’s issues, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. This is what happens when we insist on suspending skepticism. This is what happens when Twitter bullies define our agenda.
Link:
Feminists are perhaps the least successful political influence group in American history. With a mere 52% of voters being women they have failed again and again to secure abortion rights, equal pay, day care, family leave, equal treatment in the military and of course, the equal rights amendment. Now with their usual overreach and absence of political skills they’ve established a paradigm they were absolutely doomed to abandon, a paradigm that shows them up as hypocrites and has done serious damage to #MeToo. African-Americans – just 13% of voters – have a better record. Jews, with 1.5% of the vote have a better record. Handicapped people have a better record of success on their issues.
@Dave: Do you know that Biden has a stutter?
If you did, you’d realize that the fact that he’s been in the public eye for most of his adult life is remarkable.
I dated a guy with a stutter. Do you know what they go through, just to speak? I learned just how difficult it is. People who don’t stutter–they think of how to respond to something, a question or just normal conversation–and say it. Someone with a stutter has to come up with a response (which can be hard on its own, depending on the topic), and then they have to mentally run through their response to see if there are any “problem” words used. For some stutters, it’s “k” sounds. For some it’s P or G or T words. If there are problematic words in the response they then have to devise a replacement phrase.
All in sufficient time so that less-than-charitable folks like you don’t turn it into a mental impairment.
Be thankful you don’t live in that kind of daily hell, and move on.
@Dave:
The other choice is the nastiest, most dishonest, most incompetent, cruelest and most corrupt creature ever to occupy the Oval Office. Our enemies laugh at us, our friends pity us. It’s a binary choice: a flawed man or a piece of shit.
@Dave:
In terms of an ability to finish a coherent thought–have you listened to Trump for the past four years? Did you listen, for example, to his asinine disquisition on the possibility of flushing out human lungs with Lysol? Or somehow introducing ultraviolet light inside the body?
Jaysus bloody Xstos you bloody Puritans are actually twisting your tea doilies over this in the face of the Orange, you really are the cultural offspring of the Puritans.
And right now I am reading the reports on the leaked CDC document that is forecasting a bloody rerun of 1918 thanks to the Orange and some of you are such prissy gits you’re ready to dump Biden over what any person with a sacré sense of proportion knows is at once not an “unguided” development nor in any rational world comparative to the Orange.
Of course there will be the predictable response of being “better than that”….
Joe has a solid alibi for these allegations. Period. The end.
Indeed…he’s facing and is going to face hostility from both ends of the political spectrum…
@Dave: Planks, specks, you know the rest…
The whole allegation hinges on the certainty that she was 14 at the time. But the aunt says it doesn’t matter what year it was! Sorta does…
I’m going to challenge this. “Confused” some random old guy for Biden? I very much doubt this since he would have been VERY recognizable in 2008 as he was running against her aunt and was the VP nominee, even to a disaffected teen uninterested in the politics her family was getting up to. I think if this happened, it was a GOP big wig or donor and she was pressured (directly or indirectly) to say it was Biden if asked. It would have only become an article of faith in the family and NOT become a tool to strike out at an opponent if they knew it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. That this is only a thing now, after the Reade story started to fall apart, only makes me think this is a story that’s been hastily retrofitted to attack him.
As for the six people were willing to go on the record for this crap…. well, Steven it seems you’re a more generous soul then I. Having worked with actual abuse victims as well as those who pressured by vindictive family to cry abuse to punish someone, I can tell you 6 people willing to corroborate a BS story to the world means very little. People can close ranks on a lie if it benefits them quite easily and once they’re invested, will double down on the most obvious BS then admit they were trying to ruin someone’s life out of spite. I’ve personally seen a large family assert a young man beat their daughter bloody even though he wasn’t in the damn state at the time; she’d lied to the cops about her abusive uncle and everyone was eager to pin the blame on the outsider that could have helped her escape the cycle. After enough pressure from the family, she began to believe it herself and told him her hurt her, going so far as to say she wanted him jailed for it. She would not accept the facts and was angry that we were not “supporting her” in her sessions. Thank god there was proof or he’d have been screwed.
@KM: Many things are possible, I will allow.
I just don’t see the need to speculate and then draw conclusions from that speculation.
Steven and James: we got a rapist currently in the White House, someone who has been accused of actually raping a 13-year-old.
Let’s focus, shall we?
@Not the IT Dept.: Not to sound too grumpy, but what have a written that would suggest I don’t take Trump’s presidency seriously?
@Dave:..FYI you folks trying to drag Trump into the conversation; this article is not about Donald Trump. It’s about Joe Biden…
Get your own web site. Call it Dave’s Dumpyard.
Then you can play Speech Police all you want.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Again, that’s because you’re a generous soul. I will say this though – by not drawing conclusions from that speculation, you are allowing others with less honorable intentions set the narrative for you and the world. Right now, even though evidence had come out completing vindicating him in this instance since he wasn’t physically there, Murry’ allegation now allows Biden’s attackers to claim “multiple sexual harassment claims”. Her story will continue to be used to hurt him. I don’t need to know her state of mind then because I know it now – pushing an inaccurate narrative to damage a political opponent and not accepting she’s been proven wrong. I do not see a victim trying to hold her harasser to account but rather a woman pushing for as much damage as possible to the “bad man” who happens to be someone she doesn’t want elected.
Part of believing and trusting women in this kind of situation is understanding that women are just as fallibly human as men. That means they can make mistakes, get confused or outright lie when they have something to gain. #MeToo was about accountability – for men who abuse, society that turns a blind eye and for women to stand up for those who’ve been mistreated. Accountability as means if you get caught making up crap for gain, you should be called out. We owe it to the women who’ve suffered and weren’t believed because of this kind of thing to not just let it slide.
You’re a good man, Steven and seem to not want to offend or presume negativity or malice if you can avoid it. A lovely way of view the world and likely good for your soul. However, if somebody says they smelled a fart in an elevator and there’s only one person in it before, they don’t get to blame it on the guy who took the stairs. You’d rightly think they had something against the stair taker and not believe them when they start trying to change the details of their story so he’s the villain. That should be the case here – benefit of the doubt goes to the person who can prove their innocence and the story-changer gets the side-eye.
@Dave:
I’m confused here. Are you still talking about Biden, or have you switched to Trump (self-proclaimed hero of the famous looking for Mr. Goodbar campaign of “[his] own personal Vietnam”)?
That just happened to come to light right after Biden sewed up the DEM nomination and the previous sexual assault claim fel flat on it’s face. Steven? I never would have thought you were naive before, but this stretches credulity so far beyond the breaking point that even the CERN particle accelerator could not match it.
@Guarneri: Maybe some day you will learn the meanings of words.
Steven: Excuse me? All right, I’ll spell it out: whatever it is Biden did or most likely didn’t do, it doesn’t come close to comparing to Trump’s history of rape and sexual assaults. Which he revels in.
Guarneri’s spilled the beans; in addition to damaging Biden, it also attacks the MeToo! movement and mocks the women with legitimate complaints.
Your “obvious” comparison wasn’t to Kavanaugh; it should be to Trump. And we all know who is worse for women, the country and the constitution. We can’t get distracted from the real goal of defeating Trump.
@Not the IT Dept.: I simply do not understand the hostility here.
And did you read the Biden v. Kavanuagh post? I talked about Trump quite a bit therein.
@OzarkHillbilly:
He apparently struggles with a certain monosyllabic word that rhymes with “can.”
As well as the notion of being uninvited, but c’est la vie.
@Steven L. Taylor: Yeah, I guess he’s never seen the Sound of Music. (A needle pulling thread…)
@Dave: and the current leader is well versed in coherent lysol/chlorox thoughts?
The story is a fabrication. This has been conclusively demonstrated by documentary evidence showing Biden was not at the event. That should have ended discussion of it, together with round condemnation of Murry and O’Donnell for recklessly defaming a public figure. But no; we have reams of “But what if it had been true, or what if it was actually some other event?” pontification, the overall impact of which is to eat away corrosively at Biden’s reputation and public standing.
And that’s why Republicans will keep levelling these kinds of accusations, with no concern for whether they are true or not. Because they’re effective.
I do look forward to the Democratic Party campaign ads that call for the president to address the multiple claims of sexual abuse levied against him. This is going to be the sleaziest campaign since 2016.
Steven: It’s not hostility, it’s exasperation. And the post shouldn’t have been comparing Biden to Kavanaugh, it should have compared Biden to Trump. Apples to apples.
@Not the IT Dept.:
As I noted, I mentioned Trump quite prominently in that post several times. The Kavanaugh case is clearly relevant, however, but you are free to think it not. The context of the election is also clear. I think you are being unfair and inaccurate in your assertions.
My irritation at your comments are driven by a) the fact that I think you being, as noted, inaccurate/unfair about your critique of that post, and b) I am not a fan of being told what I ought to be writing.
We agree that Trump needs to go. Biden is the only viable option. So we can find plenty of common ground there for sure.
I’m delighted that I have the freedom to think your comparison is not relevant; I am taking full advantage of it.
@Not the IT Dept.: I do appreciate your lack of any attempt whatsoever to acknowledge my point or to try and meet me halfway, or a quarter-way.
Trump is not afraid of Biden unless you mean any criticism of Biden is off limits which means he should not be running because he is past his sell by date.