New Hampshire state Rep. Richard Komi has stepped down from his position, after the backlash for the way he dismissed Tara Reade’s sexual allegations against Joe Biden, including citing the “position of the female vagina.”
In a tweet posted on Friday, Komi argued against the veracity of Reade’s account, citing the position of female genitalia and saying she would have to have cooperated with Biden’s attempt to assault her for the allegations to be true.
“Judged by the position of the female vagina, it will not be easy for anyone to just put their finger into the vagina unless their [sic] is some cooperation from the female herself. That is why I believe Tara Reade’s allegations [sic] is false. She is looking for attention,” Komi tweeted Friday. The tweet was deleted shortly after.
Shortly after, Komi issued an apology.
“I also want to offer my sincere apologies to anybody whose feelings may have been hurt by the tweets. I am and will continue to be a supporter of victims of sexual and domestic assault,” Komi said in a statement to his colleagues in the New Hampshire legislature.
“The tweets were very poorly worded and do not reflect who I am and what I stand for. I ask for the forgiveness of all who have been a victim of sexual or any other kind of assault.”
“I regret the poor choice of words that I used. It kind of portrayed me as someone who doesn’t care about women or the victims of sexual assault. That is not the case. It’s regrettable that I used those words, those words do not reflect the person I am. I wish that I had chosen my words more carefully, and I do apologize,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Many on social media didn’t waint long to respond to Komi, and the backlash was swift.
“I am appalled by Representative Komi’s comments. The comments are not fitting for the New Hampshire House of Representatives and immediately upon learning of them I called him and asked Representative Komi to resign his seat,” House Speaker Steve Shurtleff (D) said in a statement.
New Hampshire State Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said she supports Shurtleff’s request for Komi’s resignation. Anthony Zenkus, the director of education for The Safe Center, an advocacy group for victims of sexual and domestic violence, said they don’t accept his apology.
Komi is a former refugee from Nigeria who escaped political persecution there and arrived in the U.S. in 1999. He was first elected to the New Hampshire legislature in 2008 and later in 2018.
