In a new statement released Friday, Joe Biden says he is requesting the Secretary of the Senate ‘ask the Archives to identify any record of the complaint [Reade] alleges she filed & make available to the press any such document.’
***THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS ALERT***
More than a month after being publicly accused of sexual assault by a former Senate staffer in the 1990s, former Vice President Joe Biden says the allegations “aren’t true. This never happened.”
What We Know:
- Biden’s campaign released a statement Friday morning from the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee shortly before a live television interview with MSNBC. The statement and interview are the candidate’s first direct response to the allegations by former Biden Senate staff assistant Tara Reade.
- In the statement, Biden seeks to walk the line between respecting and listening to sexual assault allegations — a hallmark of most Democrats’ response to the #MeToo movement — and defending himself.
“While the details of these allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not complicated,” Biden said in the statement. “One is that women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced. The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny. Responsible news organizations should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways.”
- Reade claims that Biden assaulted her in the spring of 1993, when she worked as a staff assistant in his Senate office. Reade could not remember the exact location or date of the alleged assault, but said it happened when a supervisor asked her to deliver a duffel bag to Biden on Capitol Hill. When she met up with the then-senator in a hallway, he pinned her up against a wall and penetrated her vagina with his fingers. “His hands went underneath my clothing and he was touching me in my private areas and without my consent,” Reade said.
- Reade first made the accusation on a podcast in March, and it has since been reported by several other news outlets, including UNR.
- At the time, Reade says she told her brother, her late mother and a friend. Reade’s friend told NPR that she heard the same specific details of the alleged assault at the time, but declined to be identified. Her brother, Collin Moulton, told NPR that Reade had said Biden put his hands “under her clothes.”
- That account went beyond what Reade had told her local newspaper in California last year just days after a former Nevada lawmaker had detailed what she considered inappropriate physical contact when Biden had campaigned for her. Reade initially alleged that Biden had touched her several times in a way that made her feel uncomfortable, but did not accuse him of sexual assault. Reade told NBC that she didn’t feel comfortable telling her full story then.
- The Biden campaign denied the allegation, saying it was clearly “untrue” and “absolutely did not happen.” Other former Biden staffers rejected it as out of character for Biden and said they were unaware of it at the time.
- Reade’s more recent allegation initially gained traction slowly, and primarily among Biden’s political opponents. But the New York Times, the Washington Post the Associated Press and NBC News all published comprehensive stories about Reade’s account on April 12, shortly after she filed a police report in Washington, D.C.Since then, Reade’s allegation has steadily gained attention and also scrutiny. And prominent Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several possible Biden vice presidential selections, have been asked about it, with all largely defending Biden.“I have great sympathy for any woman who brings forth allegations. I do support Joe Biden,” Pelosi said in a CNN interview Thursday.
- NBC’s reporting was based on multiple conversations with Reade and others with whom she said she had shared varying degrees of detail about the incident. Three of those people said on the record that they did not recall any such conversation with Reade. A fourth – who asked that her name be withheld – said Reade told her about an alleged assault, while the fifth recalled Reade telling her about inappropriate touching but not an assault.
- Donald Trump was asked about the Reade allegation Thursday, Trump said he was unaware of it, but that Biden should respond. “It could be false allegations, I know all about false accusations. I’ve been falsely charged numerous times. There’s such a thing,” he said. More than a dozen women have alleged that Trump sexually harassed or assaulted them. The president denies their accounts.
Joe Biden addressed these allegations on MSNBC’s Morning Joe at 8 AM ET.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
