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STOLBERG: One of the big differences between your hearing and the Kavanaugh hearing [of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh] — and I assume that’s what you mean when were referring to 2018 — is that you actually had corroborating witnesses but they were not allowed to appear. And Biden has made the case throughout the years that they didn’t want to appear — he’s made it seem as though they didn’t want to appear. I wonder what you think of that.

HILL: I think you just have to refer to what those witnesses have said, or those potential witnesses have said. They have indicated they were ready and available and willing to appear, over and over again. They came into the process on their own; I didn’t invite them in. These were people I didn’t even know. So they came forward to testify on their own. I don’t see any evidence that they then said that they didn’t want to testify other than what we’ve heard from Senator, Vice President, now ex-Vice President Biden. I can only look at what I know and the fact that I heard from the witnesses. But let me just say this: One had to wonder, if he is correct, why they changed their minds about testifying. I would suggest that they changed their minds because they saw a flawed process where they weren’t going to be heard and they might end up being destroyed. I don’t know that that’s the case, but I think that’s a reasonable conclusion to reach — and he was in charge of the process.

STOLBERG: You told me in 2014 that the net effect of all this was that it created a “he said, she said” situation which did not have to exist. I wonder if you still feel that way.

HILL: I feel that way. Again, let’s keep in mind that that hearing was an opportunity for the Senate to show how women who come forward to tell their story about experiencing harassment or sexual assault or rape, how they should be given a fair hearing. Very often what happens is that the people who are opposing them are in fact doing the same thing, trying to create a situation where it is one person’s word against the other. And so they’re trying to limit the amount of evidence that can be presented. This is not unusual. So let’s don’t think of this as just what happened to me in 1991. Let’s think about what is happening to women who are coming forward even today and how the Senate could have been a model for the best way to do this. It still remains a model for what many people — and I’m one of them — think is the worst way to do these kinds of hearings.

On receiving a call from Biden

STOLBERG: Has he apologized to you?

HILL: Senator Biden and I have had a conversation, and I think he said to me exactly what he has said to the American public. And again, you can describe that as an apology, but what I’m more interested in is what are our leaders going to do in the future. What happens in the future?

STOLBERG: When did you have this conversation?

HILL: It’s been a few weeks ago.

STOLBERG: Did he call you?

HILL: We had a telephone conversation.

STOLBERG: Do you consider it an apology?

HILL: Again, I keep saying this. The focus on an apology to me is one thing. But there needs to be an apology to the other witnesses, and there needs to be an apology to the American public, because we know now how deeply disappointed women all over the country were about what they saw — and not just women. There are women and men now who are just — really have lost confidence in our government to respond to the problem of gender violence.