Joe Biden sexual misconduct allegation
In March 2020, during that year's election campaign for President of the United States, congressional aide Tara Reade alleged that Democratic nominee Joe Biden had sexually assaulted her in 1993 in a Capitol Hill office building when she was a staff assistant in his office. Biden denied Reade's allegation.
Reade worked for Biden as a Congressional aide in 1992 and 1993, and later attended Antioch University and Seattle University School of Law. She later worked as a domestic violence advocate. She said she suffered emotional and violent physical abuse from both her father and ex-husband, which motivated her to work on behalf of victims. Reade misrepresented herself and her life experiences on numerous occasions, including lying under oath and in court proceedings. For example, she falsely claimed to hold a bachelor's degree from Antioch University.
Before accusing Biden of sexual assault in 2020, Reade made other comments that cast her encounters with Biden differently. In April 2019, Reade said that she filed a complaint in 1993 against Biden with a Senate human resources office, in which she alleged that Biden had made her feel uncomfortable through comments she deemed demeaning, allegedly including a compliment about her looks and a request for Reade to serve drinks at a Senate event. However, in her complaint, Reade did not accuse Biden of any kind of sexual misconduct and made no mention of the alleged assault.
In May 2023, Reade defected to Russia to seek Russian citizenship, citing security concerns. She announced this during an interview with Sputnik in Moscow alongside activist Maria Butina. Reade said that she felt safe in Moscow.
Background
Tara Reade, née Tara Reade Moulton, born 26 February 1964, lived in Nevada County, California. She changed her legal surname to McCabe for protection in 1998 because of domestic violence. Reade did advocacy work for domestic violence victims, first in Washington state and later in California. In early 2020, she worked part time with families with special-needs children in Nevada County. She earned a Seattle University Juris Doctor in 2004, but has not practiced law. She held positions and did volunteer work for county governmental agencies and for private nonprofits, performing duties in such areas as victims advocacy or animal rescue.Reade worked as a staff assistant in Biden's U.S. Senate office from December 1992 to August 1993, when she was in her late twenties. "Over the years, Reade spoke favorably about working for Biden", reported the Associated Press in 2020. A few years before she accused Biden of sexual assault, Reade repeatedly praised Biden on her personal Twitter account, retweeting or otherwise endorsing comments which characterized Biden as a leader in combating sexual violence. CNN reported in 2020 that, "In more recent years, Reade has praised Biden on social media on numerous occasions." When CNN asked her why, she said she feels conflicted about him, liking what he did politically for women's issues and saying that "many things are true at once".
Reade was one of several women who accused Biden in 2019 of "physical contact that made them feel uncomfortable, such as unwanted hugs, kisses on the head, and standing uncomfortably close", according to ABC News.
Reade, a Democrat who supported various candidates other than Biden during the 2020 primaries, said that her various allegations against Biden were not politically motivated. Reade released her memoir, Left Out: When the Truth Doesn't Fit In, in October 2020.
''The Union'' articles of 2019
On April 4, 2019, Reade contacted The Union, a local newspaper in Grass Valley, California, about her employment working for Joe Biden. Her position as a staff assistant in his Senate office in Washington, D.C., gave her responsibilities for the office's intern program and mail delivery. She alleged that Biden "used to put his hand on shoulder and run his finger up neck". Reade also told of another incident, in which, she alleged, members of Biden's staff, whom she did not name, argued about whether she should serve drinks at an event; Reade said that she heard from staff that Biden wanted her to do so because he liked her legs. Reade said after she had declined this assignment, she was admonished by Biden's office manager, Marianne Baker, who told her to wear longer skirts and to button up more. Reade said that she complained to Senate personnel and that Biden's office learned about her complaints.Reade said, "My life was hell... this was about power and control... I couldn't get a job on the Hill." Reade "didn't consider the acts toward her sexualization. She instead a lamp that was displayed because it was pretty and discarded when too bright." Reade said she wanted Biden to say "I changed the trajectory of your life. I'm sorry." In 2018, she said that the reason for her 1993 departure from Washington was to pursue a career as an actress or artiste due to her disappointment at the American government's xenophobia toward Russia. In 2009, she said that the reason for her 1993 departure from Washington was to move to the Midwestern United States with her boyfriend. She posted these conflicting accounts at the website Medium, and they were deleted by 2020. In 2020, Reade described the accounts as "stupid blog posts" she had made while writing a novel, when she "wasn't ready to talk about Biden". Reade also said that she could not recall writing about the government's xenophobia.
About the same time as that report, The Union published a column by Reade, in which she alleged that her supervisor had informed her that Biden wanted her to "serve drinks at a event" because he thought she was "pretty" and also "liked" her legs, but a senior aide intervened to stop Reade from having to do so, continuing an argument among the staff. After that, Biden would "often" touch her shoulder and neck. Reade thought that "these gestures were not so much about 'connection' but establishing dominance in the room". Reade also wrote in that essay, "his is not a story about sexual misconduct; it is a story about abuse of power." Reade said she spoke out in 2019 after watching an episode of The View, during which, she says, most of the panelists defended Biden and attacked Lucy Flores, a former assemblywoman, who alleged that Biden kissed the back of her head without consent.
Other reporting efforts of 2019
Within various of these articles and of Reade's 2019 self-published posts on Medium, Reade directed her disappointments toward Biden's office staff's interactions with her, implying that she remained unsure whether Biden himself knew of her firing or of its rationale.In April 2019, the Associated Press interviewed Reade about the allegations she was making at the time; finding that parts of her story contradicted other reports, and that her accusations could not be corroborated, the A.P. declined to report them. At the time, Reade told the Associated Press that Biden rubbed her shoulders and neck and played with her hair. She said a fellow aide told her to dress more modestly at work. Reade said, "I wasn't scared of , that he was going to take me in a room or anything. It wasn't that kind of vibe."
The Washington Post also interviewed Reade in 2019; it declined to report that interview. In 2020, The Washington Post wrote that Reade had told them that Biden touched her neck and shoulders, "and he had people around saying it was okay". Reade blamed Biden's staff for "bullying", putting less blame on Biden himself: "This is what I want to emphasize: It's not him. It's the people around him who keep covering for him... he should have known what was happening to me... Maybe he could have been a little more in touch with his own staff." The Washington Post stated that Reade in 2019 "did not mention the alleged assault or suggest there was more to the story".
In April 2019, Reade contacted Vox reporter Laura McGann to tell her story. Vox did not publish any stories about Reade in 2019, after McGann tried but was not able to verify Reade's account; McGann wrote an article praising other women who had shared allegations about Biden's inappropriate touching. In May 2020, McGann detailed the allegations Reade made to her in 2019 and quoted Reade as saying, "I don't know if knew why I left... He barely knew us by name." Reade sent McGann an essay that was similar to her essay published by The Union in 2019. McGann highlighted the following sentences, which were identical in both essays: "This is not a story about sexual misconduct; it is a story about abuse of power. It is a story about when a member of Congress allows staff to threaten or belittle or bully on their behalf unchecked to maintain power rather than modify the behavior." Reade explained that she had not shared her full story in 2019 because she thought that "the media was shutting her down"; McGann disputes the accuracy of this characterization of reporters' interactions, and notes that Reade had formerly been "adamant... that this wasn't a misconduct story".
In 2019, Reade told McGann that Reade's deceased mother and one of Reade's friends were the only people she could name as having confided in. The friend in 2019 told McGann, "t wasn't that bad. never tried to kiss her directly. He never went for one of those touches. It was one of those, 'sorry you took it that way'.... What was creepy was that it was always in front of people." Reade told McGann that media outlets including The New York Times were working on publishing her story.
Sexual assault allegation
In a March 25, 2020, interview with Katie Halper, Reade alleged that Biden pushed her against a wall, kissed her, put his hand under her skirt, penetrated her with his fingers, and asked, "Do you want to go somewhere else?" Reade told National Public Radio for an April 19 article, "His hands went underneath my clothing and he was touching me in my private areas and without my consent." Reade told The Intercept her impression was that Biden believed he had consent and was surprised when she rejected him. Reade told The New York Times for an April 12 article that when she pulled away from Biden, he looked puzzled and said, "Come on, man, I heard you liked me." She then said he told her "You're nothing to me, nothing", followed by "You're OK, you're fine". Reade told NPR she could not remember the exact place or date of the incident, stating it was likely a basement of a D.C. Senate office building in the spring of 1993.Reade told The New York Times that, after the alleged assault, she reported the harassment to three of Biden's aides, but did not mention the assault. She said that nothing happened as a result, and so she filed a complaint with the Senate personnel office, where she filled out a form to request counselling. Reade told the Associated Press that her complaint to the Senate personnel office was about "retaliation" and "him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable", with no explicit mention of sexual assault or sexual harassment. Reade does not have a copy of her Senate personnel office complaint.
Reade told The New York Times that her office duties were eventually reduced and that Kaufman later said that she did not fit the office, instructing her to find a new job. However, Reade told the Associated Press that it was Toner who stated she did not fit the job and encouraged her to find another job, which the Associated Press noted was a contradiction with her account to The New York Times. In blog posts in January and April 2020, she wrote that no one in Washington, D.C., wanted to hire her after her firing.