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Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has become the latest woman to accuse President Joe Biden of inappropriate sexual behavior.
DeVos, who served all four years of then-President Donald Trump’s administration, detailed what she described as a creepy, “gross” encounter she once had with then-former Vice President Joe Biden in a new book due out next month.
The former administration official writes that Biden, who has a well-established practice of close encounters with women many describe as creepy, allegedly attempted to “intimidate” DeVos when she was stuck in a wheelchair following a bicycle accident in late 2018, the Washington Examiner notes.
In her new book, DeVos said that Biden bent over, put his hands on her shoulders, pressed his forehead to hers, and “lingered” as she attempted to roll back.
“It was gross, and it was also a feeble attempt to intimidate me,” she wrote in her Center Street Publishing book about her days as former President Donald Trump’s education secretary, adding that she also fought “woke” education factions.
In an exclusive excerpt from “Hostages No More: The Fight For Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child,” provided to the Washington Examiner, DeVos said Biden approached her after she finished a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in January 2019, where Biden was also speaking before deciding to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
At the time, DeVos was attempting to generate support for “Education Freedom Scholarships,” and the conference gave her an opportunity to build her case.
After she spoke, her assistant wheeled her to a holding area where Biden came.
“He must have heard about my accident because he came directly up to me. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked,” DeVos recalled.
Biden then asked, “‘Do you have any hardware?’ I told him I had a very fine three-inch screw as the result of my accident,” she wrote.
“Then, this casual encounter turned into something totally unexpected and uncomfortable. Biden leaned down, put his hands on my shoulders, and pressed his forehead to mine. He lingered. As I tried to figure out how I could roll the wheelchair and myself away, he said, ‘I have nine screws in my shoulder. But everyone thinks they’re in my head,’” DeVos added.
After Biden left, her aide asked if the two were good friends, but DeVos surprised the aide when she said she and Biden had never met.
“‘Well, that was gross,’” the aide told DeVos, who wrote, “Yes, it was gross, and it was also a feeble attempt to intimidate me. I think about that encounter every time I hear Biden talk about dismantling our reforms of Title IX.”
Biden was accused — credibly, many critics have said — by eight women during his campaign of inappropriate touching. One of them, Tara Reade, a former staffer in Biden’s U.S. Senate office, accused him of sexual assault.
In May 2020, Reade sat for a “candid,” “emotional” interview with journalist Megan Kelly, who said of Reade when teasing the interview, “She gets very candid, very emotional, and handles many direct challenges to her account. She also has a message directly for the former vice president.”
Reade accused Biden of pushing her up against a wall near the U.S. Capitol Building in 1993, kissing her, and putting his fingers inside her against her will after she brought him a gym bag.
When she resisted, she said Biden responded, “C’mon man, I heard you liked me.”
Biden subsequently told MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski on May 1 that Reade’s allegations are not true.
“Did you sexually assault Tara Reade?” the host asked.
“No, it is not true,” he replied. “I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened and it didn’t. It never happened.”
However, in all, seven people corroborated Reade’s story. And just prior to Kelly’s interview, a former neighbor said she remembered a discussion with Reade about the alleged assault shortly after it happened. Reade’s brother has also said his sister told him Biden “had his hand under her clothes at some point.”
