CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Vice President Joe Biden if he was “confused” about the double standard in politics that forced him to bow out of the 1988 presidential election over several plagiarism incidents while Hillary Clinton managed to get off the hook for more serious charges.
“No, I felt there was something more important than my candidacy that had to be taken care of,” Biden responded Monday evening.
Biden, who then was the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, defended dropping out of the race nearly three decades ago amidst the accusations. Biden said his refocusing on Senate affairs allowed Democrats to block President Ronald Reagan’s Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork.
“It was clear I didn’t do what I was accused of doing,” said Biden, who admitted in 1987 to plagiarizing a law review article for a paper he wrote in law school. “And secondly, it was a time when the Supreme Court hearing for the Bork nomination was in play. I had to make a choice.
“Do I go out to Iowa and defend myself and fight my way back as friends like Arlen Specter and others suggested I do? I didn’t want to be an asterisk in history saying, ‘Biden went out to preserve the nomination and in the meantime Judge Bork is on the court.'”
Biden would not discuss whether Clinton was at fault for using private email servers as secretary of state. Tapper pushed back, asking Biden if most Americans would “vote for someone they deem so suspicious.”
“I think they will because I believe what’s happening over this campaign is the straightforwardness and honesty of her campaign as to what she would do for them,” Biden said, despite FBI Director James Comey saying at a House Oversight Committee hearing last week that Clinton lied to the public and press throughout the investigation.
“Look, here’s the measure I think the folks are going to apply. Look at Donald Trump and what he is saying and ask yourself, is it believable? Does he know what he is talking about? Will it solve at my problems? Look at what she has to say, what she is proposing and the honesty of her proposal and willingness to deliver on them,” Biden said.
Biden had considered running for the Democratic nomination, but did not jump in after his son Beau died from brain cancer last year.
