A Principled Constitutionalist Would Deny Biden The Presumption Of Innocence

Joe Biden is a professional creep.  He has spent his 50 years as a “public servant” sniffing women, groping women, fondling women, “massaging” women from behind while rubbing against them, kissing women and touching women.  Even 30 seconds on Google will turn up any number of photos and videos of Biden forcing himself into the personal space of numerous women, to hand-deliver his personal brand of hands-on “retail politicking” and “Biden empathy”.  In those photos and videos, none of the recipients of that “empathy” look particularly thrilled to be on the receiving end of it. 

Some look surprised to discover Biden’s hands roaming all over them, some look resigned, some look creeped out. But at least adult women are there for a purpose – they are usually Democrats, and they know what they signed up for.  If they made a Faustian bargain with the devil to promote their own political agenda and advance their political careers by being in the same room or convention hall as Biden, and the devil’s due is a little more than they expected to pay – well, c’est la vie. That’s why they call them “Faustian bargains” in the first place.

Of course, it’s not just adult women, either.  While Uncle Biden would never turn down an opportunity to fondle and grope somebody’s wife or mother, he is always on the lookout for some younger meat.  There are photos of him giving the Biden treatment to teenage girls as well – all on camera. They look surprised, but perhaps their Democrat parents would later explain to them that they need to focus on the larger picture – and Creepy Uncle Joe is “one of the good guys.”

Occasionally, Biden can’t get close enough to the pubescent girl he wants to fondle – in which case he doesn’t hesitate to offer her advice on whom and when she should date.  Family members of the young girl, such as her brothers, also might get a Biden lecture about their supervisory responsibilities with regard to her dating life.  One can only imagine what goes through their minds when a confused 77-year-old man they just met starts lecturing them about their sister’s dating options. In the absence of a nearby family member, Biden might take an opportunity to closely examine the breasts of the teenage girl in front of him, offering helpful commentary on their size and shape.

Biden long ago made peace with the fact that, given who he is, the camera is usually there to record what he is doing.  Republican politicians with similar inclinations are forced to either bottle them up inside and live with their Biden envy, or at a minimum practice their proclivities out of the view of the cameras. Not Biden. Biden is never camera-shy when it comes to his own predilections.

So when Tara Reade came forward with her story recently, after telling at least five people contemporaneously, in the 1990s time frame, that Senator Joe Biden, then her boss, pinned her against the wall, shoved a hand up her skirt, and pushed his fingers into her vagina, she was not speaking in a vacuum.  She was not accusing a man who until that moment had not a whisper of impropriety associated with him. She was not accusing a man whose interactions with women have been nothing but exemplary. 

Tara Reade is accusing a man who has been doing similar things his entire adult life – sometimes a little more forcefully, sometimes a little less, sometimes more overtly, sometimes not.  Biden’s pattern of objectifying the women and young girls around him, and letting his fingers do the talking, is as old as his political career.  The terminology may have changed – we probably wouldn’t have called it “sexual assault” in 1993 – but in the big picture, this isn’t anything Biden hasn’t been doing since forever.

I personally believe Tara Reade. I personally believe that Joe Biden did pretty much what Tara Reade says he did back in 1993, because he’s made a career of doing things of this nature.  There is nothing difficult here – why is it so hard for some people to accept that a creepy old guy, who feels entitled to grope and fondle women who come within his wingspan, did it in that particular instance in 1993 as well?

Can I prove it in a court of law? No, and it’s not my job to prove it in court.  Do I have enough evidence to convince a jury (or anyone else) beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden committed these acts? Not yet, but the matter hasn’t been investigated - yet. Would a jury convict Biden, if some intrepid prosecutor decided to pursue this as a criminal case?  (Never mind the statute of limitations.)  I don’t know.  Given the shifting prosecutorial standards, perhaps they would - Harvey Weinstein, a royal jackass and an all-around awful person, was convicted of rape, despite a very weak case, much documentary evidence to the contrary (recall all those “I can’t wait to see you again” emails to Weinstein from his “victims”) and “victims” who were – let’s be honest here – in transactional sexual relationships with Weinstein. Here, it’s important to remember that Weinstein wasn’t charged with being a continental-sized asshole (which isn’t a crime, not even in the state of New York) – he was on trial for rape.

But given what I have seen of the Tara Reade allegations, and given what we know about Biden himself, I have sufficient reason to believe Biden did what he is accused of.  Certainly under the “more likely than not” standard, there is enough there.

And here we come to a dilemma that some conservatives (and many constitutionalists) struggle with, despite themselves. Sure, they say, Biden is a despicable, corrupt, duplicitous, amoral, vicious, lying opportunist, who doesn’t mean a word he says about how much he cares about women’s rights.  Sure, Gropey Joe’s long history of “handsiness” (as his apologists call his public groping and fondling of women on camera) is revolting.  Sure, Biden is a slithering snake who would sell his mother for the slightest political gain. 

But still, say some conservatives (e.g., Dan McLaughlin), isn’t Biden entitled to that hallowed presumption of innocence, just like every other American? Isn’t he entitled to all that 14th Amendment due process, before we reach any conclusions about Biden engaging in criminal behavior?  Before we call Biden a sex offender, shouldn’t we give him an opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against him, to call witnesses of his own, to examine the evidence against him? Aren’t we starting down the proverbial slippery slope – conclude that Biden is guilty before he gets his due process, and next, they’ll come for us? Aren’t we – God forbid! – jumping the gun here on Biden’s guilt?

No. We aren’t.

Joe Biden is the one exception to the rule.  Joe Biden is the one man for whom there is no slippery slope. With Biden – specifically Biden – any principled constitutionalist can conclude that Biden is guilty of the acts he is accused of, and still feel that their constitutional principles are intact.  Because Biden – specifically Biden – has waived any claim to the ancient principle of innocent until proven guilty and to any due process.

Biden now demands that he be treated like any other American accused of something unsavory.  But Biden was the brains behind the Title IX college campus kangaroo courts (and I use the term “brains” very loosely here – given his increasingly obvious Alzheimer’s, no one would accuse Biden of being the brains behind anything today, but a decade ago, he could at least remember the name of his boss, where he was and which job he had). 

Biden has always supported these lawless caricatures of a campus tribunal, where the prosecutor, judge and jury consists of a single leftist college bureaucrat, the accused is given no access to evidence, no right to counsel, no opportunity to present his case or to bring witnesses that might exonerate him, and no opportunity to offer or cross-examine witnesses, much less the accuser.  Biden is a lawyer by education (and, if you believe his claims, a minimally competent one) – he is surely under no illusions as to the lawless, anti-constitutional nature of the regime he demanded for thousands of young men, whose futures were sacrificed on the altar of leftist politics.

The process of junking the kangaroo courts moved another step in the right direction a few days ago, when Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (herself an object of progressive raw hatred) published new rules for Title IX adjudications.  Progressives were enraged that under the new rules, to take effect in August, the innocent will actually have some mechanisms for proving their innocence.

Biden, sitting in his basement and tweeting out sporadic criticisms of this or that action of the Trump Administration, was also enraged.  The idea of due process and even theoretical innocence, was, to Biden, abhorrent.  Biden promised that DeVos’ rule changes “will be put to a quick end in January 2021, because as president, I’ll be right where I always have been throughout my career—on the side of survivors, who deserve to have their voices heard, their claims taken seriously and investigated, and their rights upheld.”  In other words – under the Biden approach, Biden himself is entitled to all the due process and presumptions, but no one else is.

It should be the other way around.  We – the people – should not have to suffer because former Vice President Joseph R. Biden has anti-constitutional “ideas.” Biden – and only Biden – should be the one who has to live with them.

Lawyers speak of the concept of estoppel – having once taken a position in a legal proceeding, you are then in no position to argue the opposite.  By concocting a North Korea-like regime for “adjudicating” campus sexual complaints, and by promising to reinstate the Title IX kangaroo courts the minute he gets a chance, Biden has estopped himself from arguing that he is entitled to due process or the presumption of innocence.

Needless to say, Title IX is not the only place where Biden made his views known.  There were also the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.  One can choose to believe Christine Blasey Ford, or one can choose not to believe her, but even her supporters admit through clenched teeth that Ford’s allegations had not one milligram of supporting evidence.  Yet, famously, Biden said about Ford that we should “start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she's talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts.”  Notice that Biden is speaking in legal terms here - he is deliberately not applying that inconvenient presumption of innocence – the Biden presumption is that “the essence” is real.

I agree with Biden – we should apply that presumption.  But not to us, or to the country.  We should apply it to him.  A principled conservative (and I count myself among them) and a constitutionalist can safely deny Biden the presumption of innocence because Biden has waived his right to that presumption, and is now estopped from reclaiming it.

Biden is guilty.

George S. Bardmesser is an attorney in private practice in the Washington, DC area.  He is a contributor to The Federalist and American Greatness, and is sometimes seen discussing politics (in Russian) on New York’s American-Russian TV channel RTVi.