Joe Biden Enlists Chris Dodd, Who Allegedly Assaulted Waitress, to Aid Search For Female VP

Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images for Allied Integrated Marketing

Former Vice President Joe Biden has selected former Sen. Chris Dodd to aid in his search for a female vice president, Biden’s campaign announced Thursday. The Connecticut Democrat served in the Senate for three decades and, according to an old report, allegedly assaulted a waitress during his tenure there.

In a statement, the Biden campaign said Dodd had been appointed to Biden’s Vice Presidential Selection Committee along with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Delaware Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester; and Cynthia Hogan, a Biden aide who assisted with President Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

Dodd, 75, chaired the Senate Banking Committee and was a key figure during the passage of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare. After retiring in 2011, he served for six years as chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, a trade association representing major film studios.

Despite his strong professional record, Dodd had a reputation for drinking heavily during his time in the Senate. A 2016 GQ profile of Sen. Ted Kennedy mentioned Dodd 14 times, mostly as someone with whom Kennedy socialized at the Washington restaurant La Brasserie, which went out of business in 2005.

Michael Kelly, writing for GQ, described this incident occurring at the restaurant in 1985:

It is after midnight and Kennedy and Dodd are just finishing up a long dinner in a private room on the first floor of the restaurant’s annex. They are drunk. Their dates, two very young blondes, leave the table to go to the bathroom. (The dates are drunk too. ‘They’d always get their girls very, very drunk,’ says a former Brasserie waitress.) Betty Loh, who served the foursome, also leaves the room. Raymond Campet, the co-owner of La Brasserie, tells Carla Gaviglio the senators want to see her.

As Gaviglio enters the room, the six-foot-two, 225-plus-pound Kennedy grabs the five-foot-three, 103-pound waitress and throws her on the table. She lands on her back, scattering crystal, plates and cutlery and the lit candles. Several glasses and a crystal candlestick are broken. Kennedy then picks her up from the table and throws her on Dodd, who is sprawled in a chair. With Gaviglio on Dodd’s lap, Kennedy jumps on top and begins rubbing his genital area against hers, supporting his weight on the arms of the chair. As he is doing this, Loh enters the room. She and Gaviglio both scream, drawing one or two dishwashers. Startled, Kennedy leaps up. He laughs. Bruised, shaken and angry over what she considered a sexual assault, Gaviglio runs from the room. Kennedy, Dodd and their dates leave shortly thereafter, following a friendly argument between the senators over the check.

Eyewitness Betty Loh told me that Kennedy had ‘three or four’ cocktails in his first half-hour at the restaurant and wine with dinner. When she walked into the room after Gaviglio had gone in, she says, ‘What I saw was Senator Kennedy on top of Carla, who was on top of Senator Dodd’s lap, and the tablecloth was sort of slid off the table ’cause the table was knocked over—not completely, but just on Senator Dodd’s lap a little bit, and of course the glasses and the candlesticks were totally spilled and everything. And right when I walked in, Senator [Kennedy] jumped off … and he leaped up, composed himself and got up. And Carla jumped up and ran out of the room.’

According to Loh, Kennedy ‘was sort of leaning’ on Gaviglio, ‘not really straddling but sort of off-balance so it was like he might have accidentally fallen. … He was partially on and off … pushing himself off her to get up.’ Dodd, she adds, said, “It’s not my fault.”‘ Kennedy said something similar and added, jokingly, “Makes you wonder about the leaders of this country.”

None of the parties involved in the incident denied that it took place:

I later asked Donovan if he or the senator would like to comment on or deny reports of heavy drinking or unusual behavior by Kennedy, and to comment specifically on the accounts of Kennedy’s behavior with the congressional page, the Brasserie waitress, and the luncheon date on the floor. Donovan said Kennedy would stick to his standard reply: “It has been and remains his policy never to comment on this sort of endless gossip and speculation.” Donovan did say that the “slight tremor” in Kennedy’s hands is attributable not to drinking but to an inherited medical condition that worsens with age. (Brasserie co-owner Campet also declined to comment on either story involving his restaurant. Asked if he would care to deny the incidents, Campet said, “Did you hear me, sir? I have absolutely no comment.” Dodd’s press secretary did not return numerous phone calls.)

It’s likely the optics of Biden picking Dodd to assist with his search for a vice president will raise questions. Biden is already facing an allegation from one of his own former Senate staffers, Tara Reade, that he assaulted her in 1993. The Biden campaign has denied the claim, but the vice president has not yet commented personally, despite growing pressure to do so.