Story highlights Joe Biden said he owes Anita Hill an apology for not doing more during Clarence Thomas' confirmation

Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 confirmation hearing

Washington (CNN) Former Vice President Joe Biden says he owes Anita Hill an apology for not doing more for her during confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee when Hill testified there in 1991. Hill said she was sexually harassed by Thomas while he was her supervisor at the Department of Education. Thomas denied the allegations, calling the questioning during the hearing a "high-tech lynching."

In a new interview with Teen Vogue , Biden said he believed Hill, and that he owes her an apology. He said that following criticism over the all-white, all-male committee roster, he campaigned for two female Senators "on the condition that if they won they would come on the Judiciary Committee, so there would never be again all men making a judgement on this."

"And my one regret is that I wasn't able to tone down the attacks on her by some of my Republican friends," Biden said. "I mean, they really went after her. As much as I tried to intervene, I did not have the power to gavel them out of order."

Biden added that if he could do it again, he would have gone forward with a subpoena for three women, whom he had sign affidavits saying they wouldn't testify.

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