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Jill Biden's past declaration that "decency" was on the ballot in 2020 has come under fire following reports that an aide to Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin filmed a sex tape in a hearing room on Capitol Hill.
A brief clip showing two men having sex in the Hart Senate Office Building hearing room was published by the Daily Caller on Friday. Newsweek has not independently verified the footage's authenticity.
Reports about the sex tape have prompted conservatives and supporters of former President Donald Trump to bring up the first lady's past comments positing that electing President Joe Biden in 2020 would bring back "decency" to government after four years with Trump as commander-in-chief.
The Daily Caller report did not name the staffer in question, but other conservative outlets identified one of the men in the video as Aidan Maese-Czeropski, a legislative aide to Cardin.
Maese-Czeropski is "no longer employed by the U.S. Senate," a spokesperson for Cardin said in a statement to Newsweek. "We will have no further comment on this personnel matter."
In a statement on his LinkedIn page, Maese-Czeropski said that people have attacked him to pursue a political agenda.
"This has been a difficult time for me[...]While some of my actions in the past have shown poor judgment, I love my job and would never disrespect my workplace. Any attempts to characterize my actions otherwise are fabricated and I will be exploring what legal options are available to me in these matters," the former aide wrote.
Newsweek has contacted the White House, the Biden campaign and a Trump spokesperson for comment via email.
"Decency is on the ballot," Jill Biden wrote in the post on X, formerly Twitter, soon before election day in 2020.
"Remember when Jill told us decency was on the ballot?" conservative commentator Tomi Lahren wrote on the platform on Saturday night.
"The decency," Lahren added, alongside a screenshot from a Breitbart article about the sex tape incident.
The conservative Libs of TikTok account wrote: "Is this the 'return to normalcy' we were promised by Joe Biden and the Democrats?"
Robby Starbuck, a former congressional candidate, wrote that Jill Biden "was right, decency was on the ballot and the outcome was indecent."
One Twitter user edited together a video using the president's comments from August 2020 where he said that "character," "compassion" and "decency" were on the ballot and highlighted scandalous incidents that have occurred during the Biden administration, including when a transgender influencer went topless during a Pride Month event at the White House earlier this year.
"Joe Biden: Decency is on the ballot," @WesternLensman wrote alongside the video, which has amassed more than 1.8 million views.
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About the writer
Khaleda Rahman is Newsweek's National Correspondent based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on education and national news. Khaleda ... Read more