Biden on assault allegation: ‘It never happened’
Presumptive Democratic nominee calls for release of any complaint, not Senate papers
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday denied an allegation of sexual assault by a former
Senate aide, Tara Reade, breaking a monthlong silence that had frustrated some Democratic activists as his presidential campaign navigated issues of gender that are vitally important to many members of his party.
Sounding emphatic and at times agitated in an interview on MSNBC, Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, tried to address concerns about Reade’s claim by saying that she had a right to be heard while also insisting that he had not assaulted her. “No, it is not true,” Biden said. “I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened.
“Believing women means taking the woman’s claim seriously,” Biden said, adding, “But in the end, in every case, the truth is what matters. And in this case, the truth is, the claims are false.”
Biden also called on the National Archives to release a complaint related to the allegation, if one existed. At the same time he continued to oppose requests to release his Senate papers, which, he said, do not contain personnel records.
The interview, as well as a statement Biden posted on Medium, amounted to his campaign’s most concerted effort yet to contain any possible damage to his candidacy just as the Democrat had turned his attention to unifying the party against President Donald Trump. But Biden’s lack of response for so long was the latest example of caution and tentativeness in the Biden camp, worrying some Democrats about the campaign’s agility in a general election that is sure to be heated and highly personal.
The weeks of indecision about how to respond publicly to Reade highlighted, in part, the former vice president’s great reliance on female voters as a political base that he cannot afford to alienate and the determination of Democrats to champion a zero-tolerance standard for abuse of women. Biden, in arguing that victims should be heard while trying to defend himself, also showcased the differences between the pressures facing him and the president on matters of gender and sex.
Trump has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by more than a dozen women and in the 2016 election confronted the release of a recording in which he was heard in his own voice boasting about groping women. He has never sat for a sustained televised grilling to specifically address any of the sexual assault allegations against him.
The president has typically dismissed the allegations out of hand or responded combatively, often attacking or denigrating his accusers. Last year, for instance, when he was accused of assaulting a former columnist for Elle Magazine in the mid-1990s, he insisted he would never have done it because “she’s not my type.”
Trump has usually received the vocal support of many members of his own party and the conservative media, and has effectively made disbelief of the extensive claims against him a political litmus test for Republicans, holding grudges and sometimes punishing those who spoke out against him in 2016.
Biden, meanwhile, has faced a single allegation of assault — Reade’s — that has flummoxed the former vice president and his campaign, unnerved Democrats about his electoral prospects and frustrated women’s groups that have long seen Biden as an ally and have more recently found themselves struggling to address the claim against him.
At a news briefing Friday, the new White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, told reporters that the administration was “pleased that the former vice president has decided to go on the record.” Asked about the allegations of sexual assault and other misconduct against Trump, she said that the president has denied those claims and then blamed the news media for raising allegations that, she suggested, were “asked and answered in the form of the vote of the American people.”
Officials at the Republican National Committee jumped on Biden’s remarks Friday, with questions surrounding the release of his Senate papers at the University of Delaware emerging as a new flash point. Reade has said that Biden assaulted her in 1993, when she worked in his office, pushing her up against a wall in a Senate building and penetrating her with his fingers. She said she filed a complaint with a congressional personnel office but does not have a copy; such paperwork has not been located. The complaint, she says, does not mention the assault.
Under repeated questioning from Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, Biden — at times flashing signs of annoyance — insisted that the papers at the university would not contain information relevant to the allegation, and he indicated that employment complaints are kept at the National Archives. Biden was also emphatic that a search of the archives would yield no complaint.
“I’m confident there’s nothing,” he said. “I’m not worried about it at all. If there is a complaint, that’s where it would be; that’s where it would be filed. And if it’s there, put it out. But I’ve never seen it. No one has that I’m aware of.”
Last year, Reade and seven other women came forward to accuse Biden of kissing, hugging or touching them in public in ways that made them feel uncomfortable. She did not publicly mention the assault at the time and only came forward with the allegation in late March of this year. Several of Reade’s friends have said she told them about a traumatic sexual incident involving Biden. Nearly two dozen people who worked with Biden during the early 1990s, including many who worked with Reade, told the New York Times they had no recollection of sexual misconduct by Biden.
In 2017, Reade retweeted praise for Biden and his work combating sexual assault. In more recent months, her Twitter feed has featured support for Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom she supported in the California primary. Reade says she has no political motives and does not want to be used by either party for partisan attacks.
While Biden had remained quiet on the subject until Friday, a number of prominent Democrats had been pressed on the matter and sided with Biden, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, even as activists had become impatient, urging the former vice president increasingly loudly to address the matter directly.
Tina Tchen, president and chief executive of Times Up Now, an organization dedicated to combating workplace harassment, said Biden “did what he had to do” in his remarks by taking the “allegations seriously” while respecting Reade’s right to speak out.
“It is the kind of thing we need all presidential candidates to do when these allegations come forward,” she said. “Obviously, that hasn’t happened with the current president, and we need fuller transparency on any allegations he has faced as well.”