Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden and his campaign received disturbing news yesterday that could well undermine the claim that he never harassed or assaulted former staffer Tara Reade (shown).
A court document from Reade’s divorce proves that she told her ex-husband that someone in Biden’s office sexually harassed her.
Published by the San Luis Obispo Tribune, the document does not prove that Reade filed a harassment complaint with the Senate, as she has claimed she did. Nor does it prove Biden assaulted her.
But it does provide another corroborating witness to Reade’s claim that she told multiple people about trouble with Biden or staff members.
The Document
“The declaration … does not say Biden committed the harassment nor does it mention Reade’s more recent allegations of sexual assault,” the Tribune reported.
Reade’s then-husband Theodore Dronen wrote the court declaration. Dronen at the time was contesting a restraining order Reade filed against him days after he filed for divorce, Superior Court records show.
It appears to be the only written record that has surfaced from the time that substantiates Reade shared her account in the years following the alleged incident, though a former neighbor came forward last week about similar conversations she said she had with Reade in 1995.
The problem for Biden and his campaign? The affidavit says Reade “struck a deal” with Biden’s chief of staff, something Biden’s former staffers and Biden explicitly deny:
I met Petitioner in the spring of 1993 while working in Washington, D.C. At the early stages of our dating, Petitioner felt comfortable confiding in me as we both worked for members of Congress, and we shared many other common interests. On several occasions Petitioner related a problem that she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in U.S. Senator Joe Biden’s office. Petitioner told me that she eventually struck a deal with the chief of staff of the Senator’s office and left her position. I was sympathetic to her needs when she asked me for help, and assisted her financially, and allowed her to stay at my apartment with my roommate while she looked for work. 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 affidavit responded to Reade’s declaration to support a request for a restraining order, the newspaper reported. That request “described incidents of abuse throughout her life. In interviews with The Tribune and other media, Reade has identified herself as a domestic violence survivor and victim’s advocate.”
As well, the newspaper reported, “Though the ex-husband disputed many statements Reade made in her declaration, he wrote at the time that the alleged incident in Biden’s office and others described in the document ‘color [Reade’s] perception and judgment’ of her civil case.”
Biden’s campaign didn’t comment for the Tribune but did release a statement from the chief of staff when Reade worked in his office. Ted Kaufman denies a deal with Reade: “I have consistently said what is the truth here — that she never came to me,” he claimed. “I do not remember her, and had she come to me in any of these circumstances, I would remember her. But I do not, because she did not.”
Though the Dronen document does not corroborate a sexual assault, others have, including her brother and four others. One of them is her mother, who spoke of Reade’s problems with Biden on CNN talker Larry King’s program.
Drop Out Joe
Last night, Megan Kelly posted her interview with Reade, who claims Biden cornered and assaulted her in 1993.
She said Biden is not doing what he said people should in evaluating sexual-assault claims: believe women. Indeed, she said, she’s been the victim of harassment since she filed the charge, and worse, a death threat after someone called her a Russian asset who is trying to torpedo Biden’s candidacy.
Reade said she would sit for a polygraph exam if Biden did, but that she is not a criminal.
Kelly asked if she had anything to say to the presumptive Democrat nominee.
“You and I were there, Joe Biden,” Reade said. “Please step forward and be held accountable. You should not be running on character for the president of the United States.”
And yes, Reade said, Biden should withdraw from the race for president: “I wish he would. But he won’t. But I wish he would.”
Biden needn’t apologize for the assault and harassment that Reade alleges, she told Kelly: “I think it’s a little late.”
Image: screenshot from YouTube video
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
