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    Friday, May 10, 2024

    Two more women accuse former VP Joe Biden of inappropriate touching

    Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Biden Courage Awards Tuesday, March 26, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

    Two more women claim that former Vice President Joe Biden touched them in ways that made them uncomfortable.

    Caitlyn Caruso told The New York Times that Biden kept his hand on her thigh and hugged her “just a little bit too long” at a University of Nevada event about sexual assault when she was 19.

    “It doesn’t even really cross your mind that such a person would dare perpetuate harm like that,” she told the newspaper. “These are supposed to be people you can trust.”

    Caruso, a victim of sexual assault who shared her experience at the event, said she never told anyone at the time.

    The second woman, 59-year-old D.J. Hill, claims that Biden moved his hand from her shoulder to lower down her back while taking a photo at a fundraiser in Minneapolis in 2012.

    “Only he knows his intent,” she told the Times, saying it made her “very uncomfortable.”

    Hill said that her husband noticed Biden’s dropping hand and put his own on the politician’s shoulder to disrupt him.

    Biden, who has been teasing a presidential campaign for months, has faced several similar allegations of inappropriate touching recently, beginning with Nevada lawmaker Lucy Flores, who accused him of planting a “big slow kiss” on the back of her head during a 2014 rally.

    “He made me feel uneasy, gross and confused,” she wrote in an essay for The Cut.

    “I’m not suggesting that Biden broke any laws, but the transgressions that society deems minor (or doesn’t even see as transgressions) often feel considerable to the person on the receiving end. That imbalance of power and attention is the whole point — and the whole problem.”

    In a statement, Biden said he had no recollection of the incident.

    “In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort,” he said in a statement provided by his spokesman Bill Russo. “And not once — never — did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention.”

    In this June 3, 2016, file photo, Lucy Flores poses for a photo at her North Las Vegas campaign headquarters. Flores, the former Nevada politician who accused Joe Biden of inappropriately kissing her on the back of the head in 2014, rose from a tough childhood through top Nevada political circles before becoming an outspoken critic about sexism and harassing behavior in politics. (AP Photo/Michelle Rindels, File)

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