by Richard Cameron

Tara Reade Accusations Against Joe Biden Fall Apart

Tara Reade, the woman who accused former Vice President Joe Biden of sexual assault, has now effectively destroyed her sexual assault / sexual harassment narrative in an interview with Associated Press reporter Don Thompson.

Reade, who had claimed previously, on March 25th that that Biden assaulted her by forceful digital penetration in 1993, told Thompson that the report she submitted to a congressional personnel office, did not disclose either sexual assault or harassment.

Biden, the Democratic nominee running against Donald Trump, flatly denied the charge while being interviewed by “Morning Joe” host, Mika Brzezinski on Friday.

“I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable.  I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.”

All Ms. Reade can recollect about the report was that she used two descriptions of the nature of her complaint, “uncomfortable” and “retaliation”.

Reade’s reference to the report, stemmed from further follow up questions in the interview, relating to previous statements made in 2019 to AP, where in the records of that interview, Reade is quoted as saying she “chickened out” after going to the Senate personnel office.  Reade said: “They have this counseling office or something, and I think I walked in there once, but then I chickened out.”

In that same interview, when the Associated Press requested details of her assertions about “uncomfortable and inappropriate touching”, Reade made no specific reference to sexual assault of any kind. Ms. Reade clarified that if in fact, either the Senate or the National Archives are able to locate the complaint, described as an “intake form”, there will be no reference to the specific alleged incident in which Biden placed his hand inside her genitals.

Ms. Reade’s recollections about her visit to the office where she initiated her complaint, is quite hazy. In 2019 she told an AP reporter,  “They have this counseling office or something, and I think I walked in there once, but then I chickened out.” She made a similar statement in a subsequent interview with AP that same day.

In one of Reade’s interviews with the AP in April 2019, she told interviewers that Biden “rubbed her shoulders and neck and played with her hair”. She added that one of Biden’s aides advised her to dress more conservatively and told her “don’t be so sexy.”

Of Biden, she said in the 2019 interview that, “I wasn’t scared of him, that he was going to take me in a room or anything. It wasn’t that kind of vibe.”

After the Associated Press collected Reade’s statements and endeavored to fact check and find corroboration, they concluded there was nothing verifiable and opted not to publish them, in part due to the fact that her account was contradicted by other reporting.

Ms. Reade now maintains that she neglected to raise the issue of the assault with the AP reporters in 2019 because she was apprehensive about the possible “backlash” and that she “was still coming to terms” with the incident.

Some have wondered how in 2019, 26 years after the alleged event, she was still sorting out her feelings about it, but a year later, the matter was settled in her mind firmly enough to declare it publicly with specific detail.

This latest report adds to a body of reporting that has already raised major questions about not only the veracity of Tara Reade’s claims, but her personal credibility.

• In March of this year, Reade indicated that she had arranged to sit for an interview with a California newspaper, The Union last April. She cancelled the interview she says, because she was uncomfortable with the reporter’s tone and “I just really got shut down”, thus the meeting was brief and she did not disclose an assault at that time.
• What she did tell the paper was something quite short of a sexual assault. “He used to put his hand on my shoulder and run his finger up my neck,” Reade said. “I would just kind of freeze and wait for him to stop doing that.”
• Reade worked in Senator Biden’s office for approximately 9 months, from December 1992 to August 1993. Her demotion in the office, she has stated, was due to her refusal to serve drinks at an event Biden’s staff had arranged.
• Although Reade claims that she was told by another staffer that Biden wanted her to serve drinks, because “he liked my legs”, journalists have not been able to find any substantiation for this incident. Moreover, this account conflicts with Reade’s alternate claim that she was dismissed because she reported harassment.

The New York Times interviewed some of Reade’s co-workers, such as Marianne Baker, Biden’s executive assistant, plus top aides Dennis Toner and Ted Kaufman. In contradiction to Reade’s account, each has stated that they received no complaints, formal or otherwise from Reade.  Kaufman told the Times, “She did not come to me. If she had, I would have remembered her.”

This was confirmed by Dennis Toner and as to Ms. Baker, she told the paper,  “I never once witnessed, or heard of, or received, any reports of inappropriate conduct (by Biden), period.” Ms.Baker said that if Tara Reade had in fact, registered a complaint of the nature Reade is now alleging, it “would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional, and as a manager.”

In 2017, Reade praised Biden for his vote on the Violence Against Women act and his support of women’s rights.  In one tweet she said, regarding Biden, “My old boss speaks truth. Listen.”

My old boss speaks truth. Listen. https://t.co/lg30CKeMeQ

— Tara McCabe (@taramccabe94) March 13, 2017

The above items are but a fragment of the inconsistencies and the overall fact pattern that renders Ms. Reade’s claims spurious and lacking credibility. In a follow up, we will outline those in more detail.

But at this stage, with this development – Reade’s disclosure that there will be found no documentation of a reported sexual assault incident in the personnel files of the U.S. Senate, is sufficient in itself to confidently predict that in the days to come, the furor over Reade’s accusation, will be exhausted and Biden’s campaign will move confidently forward, minus the specter of a candidate swap involving the likes of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

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