Lucy Flores, a former member of Bernie Sanders’ political group, “Our Revolution,” dropped a bombshell today when she describes a creepy encounter she had with him in New York Magazine’s ‘The Cut’
If Joe Biden didn’t have a well-recorded history of touching and caressing young girls and women, Democrats might suspect the presidential campaign of Socialist Bernie Sanders was behind Flores’ accusations. Coincidentally, only yesterday, a new poll came out showing Joe Biden, who has not yet announced his candidacy, taking a substantial lead over Sanders and equally creepy Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke in the Democrat presidential primary race.
In 2014, Flores was a Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of Nevada looking for some help just three days before the election. She was ‘grateful and flattered’ to have VP Joe Biden offer to make an appearance at a campaign rally along with Eva Longoria.
Flores can be seen in the photo below with VP Joe Biden as he wraps his hand around Eva Longoria’s back and directly under her breast.
I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, “tragametierra,” it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.
Flores describes her shock and feeling about what just happened. She describes her sudden feeling of being disrespected by Biden and how this would be different if it had been the real working world. Flores says she would have complained to the HR department but where do you complain on the campaign trail?
The vice-president of the United States of America had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners — and I felt powerless to do anything about it.
In politics, you shrug it off, smile for the cameras, and get back to the task of trying to win your race.
Flores says she moved on with her life until pictures started to surface of Biden groping other women. She says that had she never seen those photos, she wouldn’t have spoken out.
Had I never seen those pictures, I may have been able to give Biden the benefit of the doubt. Had there not been multiple articles written over the years about the exact same thing — calling his creepy behavior an “open secret” — perhaps it would feel less offensive.
According to NPR – Flores says she remained quiet for years, “fear[ing] my experience would be dismissed… But hearing Biden’s potential candidacy for president discussed without much talk about his troubling past as it relates to women became too much to keep bottled up any longer.” During her 2016 Democratic primary campaign for Congress, Flores was endorsed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is again seeking the Democratic nomination for president.
Flores writes that she “spoke to a male friend who is also a political operative in Biden’s orbit,” and that he made her question her actions and recollection of the event, and reminded her about Biden’s “significant resources,” suggesting that her credibility would be attacked if she came forward.
She says she was fearful of speaking out but hearing of Biden’s potential candidacy, she decided to speak up to tell her story.
Biden spokesman Bill Russo said in a statement that the former vice president “was pleased” to support Flores and hold the event for her. “Neither then, nor in the years since, did he or the staff with him at the time have an inkling that Ms. Flores had been at any time uncomfortable, nor do they recall what she describes,” Russo said.
“But Vice President Biden believes that Ms. Flores has every right to share her own recollection and reflections, and that it is a change for better in our society that she has the opportunity to do so,” Russo continued. “He respects Ms. Flores as a strong and independent voice in our politics and wishes her only the best.”
Just this week, Biden spoke at the “Biden Courage Awards,” an event for It’s On Us, an organization started under the Obama White House to combat campus sexual assault.
