Joe Biden’s campaign is vehemently denying an allegation that the former vice president sexually assaulted a Senate aide more than two decades ago.
“Women have a right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims. We encourage them to do so because these accusations are false,” Biden spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said in a statement to the Washington Examiner and other outlets on Friday.
The denials come after Tara Reade, who worked in Biden’s Senate office from 1992 to 1993, this week accused the likely 2020 Democratic presidential nominee of running his hand underneath her skirt and penetrating her with his fingers that year.
The former vice president’s campaign also provided a statement from Marianne Baker, executive assistant to Biden from 1982 to 2000, who said, “In all my years working for Sen. Biden, I never once witnessed, or heard of, or received, any reports of inappropriate conduct, period — not from Ms. Reade, not from anyone.”
Allegations
Reade made the sexual assault allegation this week in two media appearances. Both shows feature hosts who support Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Biden’s last remaining rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. A source close to Reade said she was deliberately holding interviews only with left-wing outlets.
“It was the strangest thing. There was no, like, exchange, really. He just had me up against the wall,” Reade said on the Katie Halper Show podcast, claiming Biden asked her to grab a gym bag before the assault. “The gym bag, I don’t know where it went. I handed it to him, and it was gone. And then his hands were on me and underneath my clothes … He went down my skirt and then up inside it, and he penetrated me with his fingers. He was kissing me at the same time.”
Reade said Biden told her he had heard she liked him and then told her, “You’re nothing to me.”
The accusation Reade shared this week adds a dramatic new allegation to what she has said in the past.
About the time many other women shared allegations of unwanted touching from Biden in the weeks before he launched his presidential campaign last year, Reade told a local news outlet of uncomfortable interactions she had with the then-Delaware senator.
Biden “used to put his hand on my shoulder and run his finger up my neck” and asked her to serve drinks at an event because he liked her legs, she said. Reade provided documents saying she worked in Biden’s Senate office from December 1992 to August 1993.
Then, on Tuesday, the Intercept reported that Reade had sought legal and public relations help from the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, an organization created during the #MeToo movement to help women share stories of sexual misconduct. Time’s Up declined to help her because working for accusers of political candidates could jeopardize its tax status as a nonprofit organization. The Intercept noted that Anita Dunn, managing director of SKDKnickerbocker, a public relations firm that works for Time’s Up, is a senior adviser for the Biden campaign.
Reade’s accusation of Biden pinning her to a wall and touching her genitals came a day after the Intercept story.
The Intercept reported that Reade filed a contemporaneous complaint about Biden’s behavior and said she told her brother and a friend about the assault at that time. The brother and friend confirmed that they heard about the allegation from Reade at the time.
“Woefully, I did not encourage her to follow up,” said Reade’s brother, Collin Moulton. “I wasn’t one of her better advocates. I said, ‘Let it go. Move on. Guys are idiots.’”
Reade’s friend, whom the Intercept did not name, said she discouraged Reade from coming forward with her story. “Back then, people assumed girls just get over it,” she said.
But Baker, a former executive assistant, said she never heard about allegations of sexual misconduct against Biden.
“I have absolutely no knowledge or memory of Ms. Reade’s accounting of events, which would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional and as a manager,” Baker said, adding, “For nearly 20 years, I worked as Sen. Biden’s executive assistant and supervised dozens of employees who reported to me. I took very seriously my duties with respect to human resources, following the direction of a senator whose insistence on a professional workplace was embedded in our culture. These clearly false allegations are in complete contradiction to both the inner workings of our Senate office and to the man I know and worked so closely with for almost two decades.”
Support for Sen. Bernie Sanders
Suspicions surrounding the claims center not just on the inconsistencies in the story but her vocal support for rival left-wing presidential candidates including Marianne Williamson, Sanders, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Tweets viewed by the Washington Examiner appear to show Reade pleading for Sanders to stay in the race. One tweet, sent earlier this week, lashed out against “Biden campaign bots” who questioned her honesty.
“I will sue anyone who continues to slander me call me a Russian agent. The charges of sexual harassment & worse against Biden are true I will have the information collected of your slander turned over to law enforcement,” she wrote.
In an interview with Vox released Friday, Reade said she initially supported Warren for president, then shifted to Sanders. Although she remains critical of President Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by scores of women, Reade said she can’t vote for Biden.
“If he’s my president, I just can’t fathom it,” she said.
A second Twitter account believed to be Reade’s showcased positive posts about Biden as recently as 2017, including retweets complimenting his public work in cancer research and sexual assault.
Multiple explanations for leaving Washington
Reade said the sexual assault in Biden’s office is what forced her out of Washington.
“I was moved into a solitary, windowless office and told to leave. I was fired, or, should I say, I was forced to resign. No one would interview me on the Hill for any position,” Reade wrote in a Medium post in April 2019.
Other statements from Reade offer different reasons.
In a December 2018 Medium post, Reade said she left Washington because her first interests revolved around the arts, she “saw the reckless imperialism of America and the pain it caused through out the world,” and she “could not stand to watch the deception and xenophobia that came from my own American government” about Russia.
In a 2009 blog post, she said she “received an offer to work on a governor’s race in California and I almost accepted” but instead “moved to the frozen tundra of the Midwest” with her future husband, who received an offer to work on a congressional campaign there.
Also in the 2009 post, in which she described physical abuse from her ex-husband, Reade lauded Biden’s work in passing the Violence Against Women Act, a 1994 bill he shepherded into law as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I should know what an abuser looks like. After all, I was working for then Sen. Joseph Biden, who sponsored the Violence Against Women Act. But domestic violence is an equal opportunity offender. It was something I read about and discussed with colleagues, never knowing I would one day walk into a marriage filled with abuse and pain,” she wrote.
Reade’s background gives the Biden campaign ammunition against her claims. According to public records, Reade declared bankruptcy in 2012, which was lifted a year later. She was also arrested in 2011 for driving without a license, although that charge was dismissed.
Controversial statements about Russia
Biden supporters point to Reade’s history of praising Russian President Vladimir Putin in social media posts and essays as evidence that she is not a reliable accuser.
In November 2018, Reade wrote an essay on Medium titled “Why a Liberal Democrat Supports Vladimir Putin,” praising the dictator’s “emotional intelligence” and “gentleness.” She called his “reverence for women, children and animals … intoxicating to American women.”
“President Putin has a higher approval rating in America then the American President, particularly with women. President Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. His sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity. It is evident that he loves his country, his people and his job,” she wrote.
Weeks later, in mid-December, Reade wrote another essay praising Putin and accusing America’s “power elite” of fearing him because his “approval ratings in America” were “higher” than Trump’s.
Both essays have been deleted but are available in a web archive.
Previous Biden allegations
As a senator for 36 years and vice president for two terms, Biden earned a reputation for kissing or touching women and girls without their consent, and this became the subject of internet jokes and memes after he was caught in numerous photos rubbing women’s shoulders and sniffing their hair.
But the tone took a serious turn when eight women came forward shortly after he announced his third presidential bid last April. They accused him of inappropriate though not sexual encounters. The first and most prominent complainant, former Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, 39, said he kissed her without permission in 2014.
In response, Biden promised to be “more mindful about respecting personal space.” But he did not apologize and, days later joked about the allegations during a speech in Washington, D.C. “He gave me permission to touch him,” Biden said after hugging a young boy.
He’s continued to raise eyebrows on his path to becoming the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.
At a campaign event in Texas last May, Biden told a 10-year-old girl she was “as bright as you’re good-looking” before taking her hand and introducing her to the press while holding her shoulders. Another woman told the Washington Examiner last summer that he made her uncomfortable when he abruptly seized her hand and clung onto it during their conversation.
