Former Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks about the coronavirus outbreak, at the Hotel Du Pont March 12, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who says former Vice Presdient sexually assaulted her 27 years ago is disputing a story that quotes her regarding the report she allegedly filed with a congressional personnel office. On Saturday afternoon, the Associated Press published a piece claiming that Reade said the report she filed does not explicitly accuse the then-senator of sexual assault or harassment. “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,” Reade said in an interview Friday. “I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.” The piece quotes Reade as saying that she knows she “didn’t use sexual harassment,” but rather the word “uncomfortable” and that she feared “retaliation.”
Separately, the AP also reports that two additional people have spoken up anonymously to say Reade told them about at least some aspects of her allegations against Biden. One Friend said Reade told her about the alleged assault when it happened in 1993 and another one said she told her in 2007 or 2008 about how she experienced sexual harassment from Biden.
The report Reade claims she filed with a congressional office has become an important element in her accusations against Biden. On Friday, Biden said he didn’t know of any complaint against him but called on the Senate and National Archives to search their records to see if they can locate a complaint from Reade. But what Reade allegedly told the Associated Press suggests that even if a document were to be found it would not confirm her allegations because she did not detail them at the time.
The Associated Press asked Reade about the complaint after uncovering notes from an interview last year in which she said she “chickened out” of filing a report. “They have this counseling office or something, and I think I walked in there once, but then I chickened out,” she said, according to a transcript of the interview last year. At the time, Reade had accused Biden of touching her inappropriately but did not detail the sexual assault allegations until this year. Reade says that her “chickened out” comment referred to the way she did not fully detail the assault allegations in the report.
Shortly after the piece was published though, Reade wrote a tweet that only said, “This is false” with a link to the AP story. Reade did not elaborate and it is unclear what exactly she is disputing since the piece quotes her directly. Earlier in the day there were reports that Tara Reade canceled a planned appearance on Fox News Sunday. “We never confirmed the interview or the New York Times story and we don’t provide details on the booking process,” a Fox News spokesperson said. The New York Times’ Lisa Lerer tweeted that Reade said she canceled the interview because she received death threats. Reade later retweeted that tweet.
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