Joe Biden Appoints Scandal-Plagued Chris Dodd to VP Selection Committee

Former Vice President Joe Biden is facing criticism for having appointed former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) to his vice presidential selection committee, given past allegations of sexual impropriety that Biden, too, now faces.

Biden is struggling to dispel allegations by former Senate staffer Tara Reade that he assaulted her in a hallway in 1993. Now, as Vice.com noted, he has appointed Dodd, who “has some #metoo issues of his own”:

Dodd was well known as Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) wingman during the 1980s — The Almanac of American Politics described his “reputation as a party boy and a partner-in-nightlife-crime” of the former senator.

And that includes one rather serious allegation of sexual assault by Kennedy in which Dodd allegedly participated. The incident was initially reported in Penthouse and confirmed by GQ Magazine in a 1990 profile of Kennedy republished in 2016 …

The alleged incident involved Kennedy throwing a waitress on top of Dodd’s lap, then assaulting her.

Dodd was also at the center of a scandal involving sweetheart mortgages from Countrywide Financial as part of a special program the troubled lender developed to benefit powerful and influential people.

As chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Dodd was the top recipient of campaign donations from PACs and employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — at the same time that those companies were pushing Americans into subprime mortgages. Democrats like Dodd shielded Fannie and Freddie from regulatory scrutiny. The result was the subprime mortgage crisis, which triggered the broader financial crisis and a global recession.

Real Life. Real News. Real Voices

Help us tell more of the stories that matter

Become a founding member

Later, Dodd worked with Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) in writing new rules for the financial services industry in the Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed burdensome new regulations and, critics say, made it more difficult for the Federal Reserve to respond to crisis situations such as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

In retirement, Dodd became the main lobbyist for the Hollywood studios, pushing for a controversial bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), that was opposed by both left and right and eventually killed by House Republicans.

Dodd is only the latest Democrat with a controversial history to find himself in a key position in Biden’s campaign. Recently, Biden named Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel to his public health advisory committee. Emanuel was a key architect of Obamacare, including its so-called “death panels,” and wrote that he hoped to die at 75. Now, Emanuel insists that the economy should not reopen until a vaccine can be found for the coronavirus.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Subscribe to the newsletter news

We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe