Yet another host on leftist MSNBC asked Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden about Tara Reade’s sexual-assault allegation and Biden again denied it.
But he also told the network’s Lawrence O’Donnell that he didn’t remember Reade, and that if someone believed her, they shouldn’t vote for him. He wouldn’t vote for himself if he believed Reade.
Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski grilled Biden about Reade two weeks ago and asked why he should receive the benefit of the doubt that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not enjoy when multiple women falsely accused him of sexual assault.
I Don’t Remember
O’Donnell opened his interview by observing that Biden must have had “well over 1,000” staffers during his 36 years in the Senate, and then asked whether he remembered Reade.
“Well, to be honest with you, I don’t,” Biden answered. “But let me get something clear. When a woman makes a claim that she has been harassed or abused — and this claim has changed as it’s gone on — but, harassed, or abused, she should be taken seriously”:
She should come forward, share her story, she should be taken seriously and it should be thoroughly vetted. And in every case, what matters is the truth. The truth is what matters. And the truth of the case is, nothing like this ever, ever happened. She has the right to be heard. But then it should be vetted, and the truth ultimately matters. And I give you my word. It never, ever happened.
Then, as Fox News noted, O’Donnell raised an op-ed in the New York Times, “I Believe Tara Reade. I’m Voting for Joe Biden Anyway.” What, O’Donnell asked, would Biden tell women who believe Reade and had planned to cast a ballot for the former vice president on November 3.
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“Well, I think they should vote their heart and if they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me. I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade,” Biden told O’Donnell.
Look at Tara Reade’s story. It changes considerably. And I don’t want to question her motive, I don’t want to question anything other than to say the truth matters. This is being vetted, it’s been vetted, and people scores of my employees over my whole career. This is just totally, thoroughly, completely out of character. And the idea that in a public place, in a hallway I would assault a woman?… It never happened.
That’s what Biden told Brzezinski, and wrote in a statement published at Medium.com.
Reade’s Story
Reade, who worked for Biden from December 1992 until August 1993, says it did happen.
The 56-year-old former staffer joined several other women last year and alleged that she, too, was a victim of Biden’s harassment.
But then, in late March, she told leftist podcaster Katie Halper that Biden sexually assaulted her.
A superior, she alleged, told her to deliver a gym bag to the senator:
He just had me up against the wall, and the wall was cold….
It happened all at once, the gym bag, I don’t know where it went, I handed it to him, it was gone, and then his hands were on me and underneath my clothes…. He went down my skirt but then up inside it, and he penetrated me with his fingers…. He was kissing me at the same time….
He said several things that I can’t remember everything he said. I remember a couple of things…. Do you want to go somewhere else?… When I pulled away, he got finished doing what he was doing, and I … pulled back, and he said, “come on, man, I heard you liked me.”
When Biden departed, Reade alleged, he told her she was fine, and left her with this thought: “You’re nothing to me.”
At least six people, as well as a court document, corroborate Reade’s claims. Among the people are Reade’s mother, who discussed Reade’s problems with Biden when she called CNN talker Larry King’s live television program in 1993.
Two women said on the record that Read told them about the assault; one will still vote for Biden.
But worse for Biden, Reade’s former husband inadvertently corroborated her account. Last week, the San Luis Obispo Tribune published part of Theodore Dronen’s response to Reade’s request for a restraining order against him.
“On several occasions,” Reade “related a problem that she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in U.S. Senator Joe Biden’s office,” the document says. Reade told Dronen “she eventually struck a deal with the chief of staff of the Senator’s office and left her position.”
As well, “it is obvious that this event had a very traumatic effect on Petitioner, and that she is still sensitive and effected by it today.”
The court document does not prove that Biden sexually assaulted or harassed Reade. But it is the second piece of written or recorded evidence that corroborates Reade’s claim that she discussed her problems with the then-senator at the time.
Photo: AP Images
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
