https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/26/george-h-w-bush-apologizes-groping-244195
Former President George H.W. Bush apologized through a spokesman Wednesday after an actress alleged that he had groped her years ago.
Heather Lind, who played Anna Strong in AMC’s “Turn: Washington Spies,” wrote in asince-deleted Instagram post that the former president had “sexually assaulted” her during a photo op in 2013.
“He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side,” she said. “He told me a dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again.”
Jim McGrath, a spokesman for the former president and first lady, didn’t deny the allegations.
“President Bush would never — under any circumstance — intentionally cause anyone distress, and he most sincerely apologizes if his attempt at humor offended Ms. Lind,” McGrath said in a statement, according to The Washington Post.
Lind said Bush’s security guard had told her she shouldn’t stand next to the former president and recalled that “Barbara rolled her eyes as if to say ‘not again.’”
She concluded her post with the hashtag “#metoo,” a platform women have used to share their experience of sexual assault and harassment.
McGrath expanded on his initial statement later Wednesday, according to the Post.
“At age 93, President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures,” McGrath said. “To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke — and on occasion, he has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner. Some have seen it as innocent; others clearly view it as inappropriate. To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most sincerely.”
Jordana Grolnick, another actress, made a similar accusation against Bush on Wednesday. Grolnick told Deadspin that she dismissed warnings from other actors that Bush had a reputation for groping women during pictures.
“I guess I was thinking: He’s in a wheelchair. What harm could he do?” she said.
She added, however, that Bush came backstage during intermission for a photo op with the cast of a Maine production of “Hunchback of Notre Dame” in August 2016.
“We all circled around him and Barbara for a photo, and I was right next to him,” she said. “He reached his right hand around to my behind, and as we smiled for the photo he asked the group, ‘Do you want to know who my favorite magician is?’ As I felt his hand dig into my flesh, he said, ‘David Cop-a-Feel!’”
“Now that the #metoo movement has brought this all to light, I think I should have been a little more alarmed to be touched so inappropriately by a man who was once the leader of the free world,” she continued. “He knows the power he has, and the reverence he deserves, even while sitting perhaps somewhat senile in a wheelchair. What I’ve come to realize is that if we tolerate these small comments and grazes from men on the street or former presidents, they might assume that it’s ok with us, and they may take it as permission to do who-knows-what else.”
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Regardless of his age and status, George should be held accountable. Along with actually making an apology to whoever he has groped, he should be held legally accountable. He deserves whatever he gets. And I hope he gets plenty of it.
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