Credible sexual assault allegations against Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden have exposed countless liberals in the #MeToo Movement as hypocrites who demanded that we #BelieveAllWomen...right up until the moment a woman's accusations would devastate the Democratic Party.
Perhaps the most hypocritical was #MeToo's most vocal adherent in the U.S. Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).
Even though she spent years calling for President Trump to resign because of allegations against him, she said during a virtual news conference Tuesday that she stood by Biden.
"And Senator, I also wanted to ask you about an issue in the news right now concerning the allegation against Joe Biden by Tara Reade, who’s a former staffer of his," asked reporter Nicholas Ballasy. "I was wondering what your reaction is to that situation. Do you believe the allegation that’s been put out there by Tara Reade against Biden?"
"So, when we say believe women, it’s for this explicit intention of making sure there’s space for all women to come forward to speak their truth, to be heard," Gillibrand answered. "And in this allegation, that is what Tara Reade has done. She has come forward, she has spoken, and they’ve done an investigation in several outlets. Those investigations, Vice President Biden has called for himself. Vice President Biden has vehemently denied these allegations and I support Vice President Biden."
"Do you think some of the Democrats who supported Blasey Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh, who’ve been silent on this Biden allegation, do you see that as a contradiction, that they’re not speaking out more in addressing Tara Reade’s allegation?" Ballasy asked in a follow-up question.
"No, and I stand by Vice President Biden. He’s devoted his life to supporting women and he has vehemently denied this allegation."
That was a remarkably different standard than the one she advocated in December 2017, when she called on President Trump to resign over allegations that he faced.
"President Trump has committed assault, according to these women, and those are very credible allegations of misconduct and criminal activity, and he should be fully investigated and he should resign," she told CNN. "These allegations are credible; they are numerous. I've heard these women's testimony, and many of them are heartbreaking."
Similarly, she called for Democrat Al Franken to resign after multiple women accused him of inappropriate conduct.
"You need to draw the line in the sand and say none of it is okay," Gillibrand said in a news conference. "None of it is acceptable. And we as elected leaders should absolutely be held to a higher standard, not a lower standard, and we should fundamentally be valuing women. And that is where this debate has to go."
Importantly, Franken's seat was considered safe, as Minnesota's Democratic Governor would name his replacement. Gillibrand, then, knew that his resignation would not significantly disadvantage Senate Democrats and it would politically easy to call for his resignation without causing the party any lasting damage.
She explained this in a back-and-forth exchange with Joy Behar on "The View:"
BEHAR: "But why did you push Franken out?”
GILLIBRAND: "For me, Al Franken is a friend of mine. He did great work in the Judiciary Committee so it was really hard and really heartbreaking."
BEHAR: "How about a hearing?"
GILLIBRAND: "He’s entitled to a hearing, but he is not entitled to my silence, Joy."
BEHAR: "No."
(Applause)
GILLIBRAND: "When you have eight allegations, eight credible allegations, multiple women, I have a 14-year-old son and a 9-year-old son. How am I supposed to tell him it’s okay to grab a woman here or here but not here? Absolutely not. I’m not going to have that conversation. That is the wrong conversation to be having. Obviously what was alleged against Al Franken is very different than what’s alleged about Steve Wynn, about President Trump. Very different. I understand that. What’s alleged against Roy Moore. All different. Different gradations."
BEHAR: "So you’re giving it an unequal equivalency?"
GILLIBRAND: "No, you’re not, because it’s not okay, Joy, to grab women without their consent. It’s not okay. So why would you want to hold our elected leaders to the lowest standard and not the highest standard? We should be holding all our elected leaders to the highest standard. And I can’t be a good mother and a good senator if I am silenced just because it’s my friend. I cannot be silenced because it’s my friend."
She applied this standard 10 months later in responding to allegations against conservative Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying that even without any corroborating evidence she believed Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and the other women who accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.
"I believe her," Gillibrand told MSNBC. "Her — her — her story is credible. If you listen to everything about it, the fact that she told her therapist about it five years ago, a friend most recently, she told a reporter before Kavanaugh was even named as a nominee. This is a woman who has endured trauma and experts have said this is what trauma looks like. These — these — it gets relived much later in time."
She even called for Kavanaugh to face jail time.
"That’s a violent crime," she said. "He should be going to jail if he was allowed to be prosecuted today. It’s not okay. And so I think the fact that so many people, so many Republicans and my colleagues are saying oh, it’s just an allegation, well, it’s not just an allegation. You assess their credibility. That’s their job as senators. They’re supposed to assess the credibility of people who are coming forward to say I don’t think this person’s trust worthy. I don’t think this person’s telling the truth."
After Kavanaugh was confirmed, Gillibrand again called on President Trump to resign over the unproven sexual misconduct allegations against him.
"You said a little under a year ago when this group of women came out and accused the president of the United States of sexual assault that he needed to resign," MSNBC's Willie Geist asked her. "Do you stand by that? Do you still believe he should resign?
"Yes," Gillibrand answered without hesitation. '"He has a dozen of credible allegations of sexual assault. This president has, again, torn at the fabric of who we are as a country and I think he is being held accountable right now by the electorate. The fact that all these voters have been marching and protesting since he was elected and took it to the ballot box in 2018. That’s why 2018 was an important election for all of us. It was a wake up for America to fight for what you believe in and restore America to its founding."
In 2020, however, she is holding Trump's opponent to a dramatically different standard, choosing to believe him because, in her words, "he’s devoted his life to supporting women and he has vehemently denied this allegation."
That is the very definition of hypocrisy.