Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., said Friday that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, D-Calif., should attack Vice President Joe Biden on his role in the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
"She needs to remind African-American people of his role in assisting the appointment of Clarence Thomas," Wilson, a Harris supporter, told The Washington Examiner. "This is something that people probably don't even think about.
"She needs to call that attention to the American people," Wilson noted.
Biden, then a Delaware senator, was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when President George H.W. Bush nominated Thomas to succeed Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1991.
Thomas, an appellate court judge in Washington, had served in the Education Department in the Reagan administration and then headed up the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for eight years.
After his nomination, Anita Hill, who served under Thomas at both agencies, accused him of sexual harassment. He denied the allegations — and Hill testified at Thomas' contentious confirmation hearing.
He was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, 52-48, though Biden voted against the nomination.
Hill has since ripped Biden for his role in the hearings, and he apologized earlier this year.
Wilson, 76, in her fifth House term, told the Examiner that despite Biden serving under former President Barack Obama, Harris should hold him accountable for the Thomas hearings.
"Joe Biden is a man, who I appreciate his partnership with the president of the United States, but I have to think back to when Joe Biden was the chairman," she said.
"I always said, as I have tumbled through politics, if Joe Biden had done what was fair, Clarence Thomas would not be on the Supreme Court."
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