The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
CT Biden accuser: ‘I don’t want to be weaponized’
Amy Lappos hits back at social media attacks
WASHINGTON — Amy Lappos, the Connecticut woman who a year ago alleged unwanted physical contact by former vice president Joe Biden, says she has been attacked on social media by individuals falsely suggesting she is hiding additional allegations against Biden.
The attacks started after Lappos tweeted about an interview in which another woman, Tara Reade, came forward with a sexual assault allegation against Biden. The online commenters have suggested Lappos is withholding part of her story because she backs Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Pinned at the collision of the #MeToo movement and the hyper-partisan 2020 election, the onslaught of tweets, Facebook messages and text messages have left Lappos, 44, traumatized and scared, she said. For Lappos, who says she is a survivor of unrelated sexual violence, the attacks open deeply painful wounds.
“I want to make sure that the message I tried to send last year about bodily autonomy and survivorship — I wanted to make sure that that story is preserved,” Lappos
said in an exclusive interview with Hearst Connecticut Media. “And I don’t want to be weaponized. I support Joe Biden right now.”
Lappos was never sexually assaulted or harassed by Biden, she said. Her story is unchanged from when she first told it in early 2019: Biden pulled her head toward his and rubbed noses with her at a Greenwich fundraiser in 2009, where she was working as a congressional aide to U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn.
Lappos is one of eight women who have alleged that Biden initiated unwanted or inappropriate physical contact with them. After their allegations emerged, Biden promised on April 3, 2019 to “be more respectful of people’s personal space.” The Biden campaign did not respond to requests for further comment Saturday.
Reade, who last year accused Biden of inappropriate touching, expanded her claim in late March to include an allegation of sexual assault against Biden dating to when Reade worked in Biden’s Senate office in 1993. Reade called for Biden to drop out of the presidential race in an interview with journalist Megyn Kelly, part of which was released this week.
Biden said the alleged assault of Reade “never happened” in a statement and interview on May 1. He requested the Senate and National Archives find and release any complaint from Reade from his office’s personnel records.
Despite all the allegations, Lappos, a Democrat, said she plans to vote for Biden in the Connecticut primary
and general election.
“Did I want to end up with Joe Biden, two white males in the election? Not really. I don’t see it being so progressive,” said Lappos. “However, Joe Biden is the obvious choice to beat [President Donald] Trump right now and therefore, I support him.”
Lappos also said she believes something did happen to Reade, but has some skepticism about the exact details.
“I believe and support Tara Reade. I give her the benefit of doubt,” said Lappos. “I will not participate in any of the bashing of her because I do believe that she speaks from a place of trauma.”
Lappos first publicly disclosed the unwanted contact she says she experienced from Biden in 2019 on Facebook and then, in interviews with the Hartford Courant and Hearst Connecticut Media. When the news broke, her front lawn in Milford was flooded with reporters and her phone started ringing and buzzing incessantly, she said. Online messages poured in from people who applauded her for speaking up or dismissed her as a liar, she said.
“I wasn’t expecting the amount of push back that I got – push back, from primarily older male Democrats,” said Lappos. “It was all social media. Some of them were so disgusting.”
The outpouring of attention – much of it negative – forced her to rebrand her business as a grant writer for nonprofits, Lappos said. Democrats ended friendships with her. Eventually, things quieted down.
Then, on March 25, 2020, a self-described socialist and podcaster Katie Halper released a podcast interview in
which Reade described her sexual assault allegation against Biden publicly for the first time. Lappos’s name surged in the news media again and online. Lappos spoke to the New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today as they vetted Reade’s claims.
People began tweeting lists of the women who had made allegations against Biden, some inaccurately stating that all the women had accused Biden of sexual harassment or assault. Lappos said she tweeted at some asking them to remove her from the list or use different language. Sometimes, they blocked Lappos and continued tweeting, she said.
On May 2, someone tagged Lappos in a Twitter thread about the Reade claims. Lappos had not read Halper’s social media posts but did listen to the podcast interview with Reade, she said.
Lappos decided to tweet: “Katie Halper also chose only to speak to Biden accusers who support Bernie for her article. I never heard from her because I support our nominee and loathe Bernie [Sanders, senator from Vermont and presidential candidate]... That’s a smear campaign posing as journalism.”
That afternoon, Halper retweeted Lappos’s comment adding: “You’re a Biden supporter accusing him of something? By all means, I will speak to you. Did you reach out?” A screenshot of Halper’s tweet was shared with Hearst Connecticut Media. The tweet appears to have been deleted from Twitter.
Halper retweeted Lappos’s message a few more times on May 2. Halper tweeted, “A Biden supporter is publicly tweeting that she
has an accusation against Biden. Someone may want to talk to her.” Halper suggested Lappos message her at one point and later said Lappos would not talk to her.
Halper and Lappos never spoke, Lappos said. She noted that Halper did not tag Lappos in her tweets about her.
Attempts to reach Halper went unanswered Saturday.
The exchange unleashed a wave of people who began suggesting that Lappos was hiding an assault, with some suggesting she’d been raped, to protect Biden. Lappos called herself a “survivor” in one tweet.
Thousands of people tweeted at Lappos with comments like: “So Biden raped you too?” “Now you don’t want to speak up because it doesn’t suit you politically?” and mocked her saying “Biden raped me but I am still way more into Biden than loathsome Bernie.” Facebook messages piled on, too, private messages shared with Hearst Connecticut Media show.
Lappos grew particularly worried when she received a random text message describing alleged examples of presidential infidelity and urging her “you should not be cover [sic] this up today.” Lappos showed the text message to Hearst Connecticut Media.
“It’s retraumatizing to keep hearing the word rape thrown at me and that I’m protecting rapists. That’s been a nightmare,” said Lappos. “As it was escalating, there is definitely a fear. You hear a noise and you’re like **** . The mailman comes and you’re ‘Oh god did somebody mail me something weird.’ ”
“I want to make sure there is no belief that I was
raped by Biden,” Lappos said.
Lappos spoke up in the first place, she said, because she wanted to support Lucy Flores, a Democratic politician from Nevada who said Biden made her feel “uneasy ” by kissing her on the back of the head at a campaign rally in 2014. Biden said in response he never believed he acted inappropriately.
Lappos was working at a Democratic fundraiser at a home in Greenwich in 2009, when then-vice President Joe Biden grabbed her head and pulled her close to rub noses with her, Lappos has told numerous media outlets. She was standing in the kitchen with a group of other volunteers when Biden stopped to talk to them.
“It was so weird,” said Lappos. “I remember when he grabbed my face and was pulling me forward, I remember thinking ‘Is he going to kiss me?’ I had no idea what the hell he was doing. … He was talking to me while he had his forehead against mine and was rubbing my nose. He was saying something to me. And to this day I have no idea what it was because I just kept thinking ‘Oh my god, his face is pressed against mine.’ ”
Lappos said the interaction was witnessed by three Himes staffers and was discussed among the low-level staff after the fact. Among the staff, jokes were made that “Biden tried to make out with me,” Lappos said. Hearst Connecticut Media tried to contact the staffers Lappos said witnessed the interaction, but did not hear back.
Lappos never filed a complaint of any kind about the interaction, she said. She does not remember meeting Biden on any other occasion.
Lappos never told Himes about the interaction, she said. In an interview, Himes confirmed he never discussed the alleged nose rub with Lappos after the event in 2009, nor after she spoke about it publicly in 2019. Lappos worked for Himes from July 2008 until Nov. 2016, she said, and a Himes spokesman confirmed.
As Lappos has reflected on the interaction with Biden over the years, she has come to view it as an uncomfortable violation of her personal space by a powerful individual in a professional environment.
As a woman whose background includes previous sexual violence and abuse, she said, she was particularly alarmed by the invasion. Lappos was raped twice while a minor, once by someone she knew in high school, she said.
The #MeToo movement has highlighted not only that sexual harassment and misconduct are unacceptable, she believes, but consent is necessary for physical contact between individuals.
“I think this discussion — this bodily autonomy discussion — is so overlooked,” she said. “An 18-inch radius around myself, that is my space. When that is space is respected and understood that that is your space to decide how you interact within that space. … I think that uplifts the understanding of rape and molestation.”
Lappos said she does not regret speaking up about her experience with Biden in 2019. She knows continuing to speak to the press about her story may further fuel her harassment.
“I have the right to my voice,” said Lappos. “I will not feel ready to let this go or heal from this until my voice is heard.”