Biden Adds a Claim to His Biography: An Arrest in South Africa

[brooklynite]

New York Times

LAS VEGAS — In at least three campaign appearances over the past two weeks, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has told a similar story as he tries to revive his campaign in states with more diverse voters. On a trip to South Africa years ago, he has said, he was arrested as he sought to visit Nelson Mandela in prison.

“This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid,” Mr. Biden said at a campaign event in South Carolina last week. “I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens Island.”

Mr. Biden referred to his own arrest twice more in the next seven days, including at a campaign stop here on Tuesday where he spoke of getting arrested in South Africa between efforts to coax his wife to marry him. That proposal occurred in 1977, both Bidens have said.

But if Mr. Biden, then a United States senator from Delaware, was in fact arrested while trying to visit Mr. Mandela, he did not mention it in his 2007 memoir when writing about a 1970s trip to South Africa, and he has not spoken of it prominently on the 2020 campaign trail. A check of available news accounts by The New York Times turned up no references to an arrest. South African arrest records are not readily available in the United States.

Andrew Young, a former congressman and mayor of Atlanta who was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1977 to 1979, said that he had traveled with Mr. Biden over the years, including to South Africa. But Mr. Young said that he had never been arrested in South Africa and expressed skepticism that members of Congress would have faced arrest there.

[Jake Stern]

1. A sitting US Senator was arrested in South Africa not once but thrice

and there was ZERO contemporary press coverage? Really?

Wonder what excuse is forthcoming?

"The SA government censored the news!"

"Reagan and Botha got together to cover it up!"

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. I was just coming to post this. Because WTFFFFFFFFFFF.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. "Mr. Biden's campaign did not respond to five efforts to seek comment and clarification."

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. I'm sorry to keep coming back to this, but imagine Biden sitting on this story for DECADES.

[Jake Stern]

5. At least with his Corn Pop tale there was a real, verifiable person

Albeit in an obituary but still. . . .

[Celerity]

6. wth, this is bizarre

Why is he doing this?

[Moderateguy]

7. Seriously WTF?

I can understand if he was a nobody but he was a US Senator. This would have made international news

[BusyBeingBest]

8. This is effing weird. Recall that

Hillary was scorched for her combat landing story in Bosnia. How is this different?

[MoonlitKnight]

9. More proof Biden is not the "safe" choice

So many things from gaffes, to exaggerations, to voting record to god knows what else.

[Ace Rothstein]

10. Imagine if Bernie said this.

This thread would have 200 replies.

[melman]

11. Not good

Not good at all.

[Nanjeanne]

12. I just don't understand why he would do this.

[Mosby]

13. Maybe he was detained, not arrested. Nt

[KayF]

14. and Mandela thanked him for it

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ex-ambassador-disputes-biden-story-of-getting-arrested-during-south-africa-visit

“After he got free and became president, he came to Washington and came to my office,” Biden said of Mandela at a brunch in Las Vegas this week. “He threw his arms around me and said, ‘I want to say thank you.’ I said, ‘What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?’ He said, ‘You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.’”

[cwydro]

15. Wow, that's a bit bizarre.

Wtf?

Gotta go do yard work, but coming back to research this.