Former vice president Joe Biden won endorsements from Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D., Texas), who made headlines near the start of the "Me Too" movement by saying the "responsibility" was on women not to invite sexual harassment, and from a Detroit mayor under criminal investigation for destroying public records.
Johnson, a House member for more than two decades, called Biden "a leader who can bring people together" in her Monday endorsement, which was first reported by the Dallas Morning News. The endorsement comes less than two years after Johnson responded to the flood of sexual assault accusations coming out in the media by saying, "we need to start talking about the power that women have to control the situation."
"I grew up in a time when it was as much the woman's responsibility as a man's—how you were dressed, what your behavior was," Johnson said in October 2017. "I'm from the old school that you can have behaviors that appear to be inviting. It can be interpreted as such. That's the responsibility, I think, of the female."
Biden has been criticized for his tendency to get "overly physically intimate" with women. He has not yet commented on the endorsement.
He was also endorsed this week by Detroit mayor Mike Duggan, who is currently being investigated by Michigan's attorney general for intentionally destroying public records. The investigation is being carried out by the attorney general's criminal division.
Biden said he was "incredibly honored" to have Duggan's endorsement. Duggan has refused to comment on his involvement in the destruction of documents.