A top Democratic National Committee (DNC) official sided with former Vice President Joe Biden over Lucy Flores, the former Nevada lawmaker accusing Biden of grabbing her shoulders, smelling her hair and kissing her head at a 2014 campaign event.
DNC finance chair Henry Munoz said he doesn’t believe Flores because he doesn’t think she was ever alone with Biden at the event. Latino Victory Fund, a progressive group Munoz co-founded, organized the event where Flores said Biden kissed her.
“As the organizer of the rally in question, I have thoroughly reviewed photographic documentation from the event, and spoken to nearly every principle in attendance, as well as staff associated with the event. To the best of our recollection, at no time were Lucy Flores and Vice President Biden alone,” Munoz wrote in a statement he posted to Twitter on Sunday.
Munoz said he was close friends with both Munoz and Biden, but asserted that “at no time were these two leaders alone together and I, and the organization I cofounded and those in attendance, do not believe that circumstances support allegations that such an event took place.”
Munoz’s defense of Biden appears to have misrepresented Flores’ account. She did not claim she and Biden were alone when the alleged incident happened.
Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor and then-current Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores (D-Las Vegas) (L) introduces U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at a get-out-the-vote rally at a union hall on November 1, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Henry R. Munoz III, co-founder of the Latino Victory PAC, speaks at a get-out-the-vote rally for Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor and then-current Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores (D-Las Vegas) on November 1, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Flores, who first accused Biden in an op-ed Friday, claimed Biden approached her while she and other speakers were waiting in line to the side of the stage.
“As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. ‘Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?'” she wrote.
“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,” Flores added in the op-ed.
Biden said he didn’t recall the alleged incident and never intended to behave “inappropriately” in a statement released Sunday.
Ashton Carter makes remarks after he was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Defense as his wife Stephanie (2nd L) Vice President Joe Biden (L) listen February 17, 2015 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort. 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,” Biden said.
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