Tara Reade worked for Joe Biden in the early 1990’s and tried to tell the story of an assault that occurred in 1993. But last year, when she first came forward, she was immediately attacked by the media as a Russian puppet. So again, she went silent.
But as it became more and more clear that Biden was set to become the democrat nominee for president, she felt that she had to speak up about her experience. She took her story to a podcast hosted by Katie Halper, who announced the interview on her Twitter account.
According to Halper:
Tara had already come forward about part of her story. After Lucy Flores accused Biden of touching her inappropriately, Reade was one of the 7 other women to share their own stories about Biden. Reade told reporters about the way he would put his hands on her shoulders, run his fingers up and down her neck. She considered talking about the rest of her story. But she didn’t because her claims of sexual harassment got her doxxed and smeared as a Russian agent. That was April 2019. Then in January 2020, Reade tried to come forward again…
The second time Reade came forward she asked for help from a not-for-profit organization called Time’s Up, which as formed as a mechanism for #MeToo victims to get their stories told. Times Up declined to help Reade citing a clause against accusing politicians, which could put their non-profit funding in jeopardy. The story was covered by the Intercept, which said:
By February, Reade learned that no assistance could be provided because Biden was a candidate for federal office, and assisting a case against him, Time’s Up said, could jeopardize the organization’s nonprofit status.
A second conflict of interest arose as it was disclosed by Halper that
“The public relations firm that works on behalf of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund is SKDKnickerbocker, whose managing director, Anita Dunn, is the top adviser to Biden’s presidential campaign.”
NewsOne published details of Halper’s interview Reade:
Reade described a graphic 1993 incident where a superior asked her to take a gym bag to Biden “down towards the capital.” Then she recalls being called towards the “side area” where Biden greeted her.
“We were alone and it was the strangest thing,” she said. “There was no like exchange really. He just had me up against the wall.”
Reade went on to say that she was wearing a business skirt with no stockings because it was hot at the time. While up against the wall, Reade says Biden’s “hands were on me and underneath my clothes.”
“He went down my skirt but then up inside it and he penetrated me with his fingers,” Reade emotionally continued.
Reade also said Biden was kissing her and saying multiple things to her. She remembered a couple of the comments.
“I remember him saying first, like as he was doing it, ‘Do you want to go somewhere else,’” she said. “And then him saying to me when I pulled away, he got finished doing what he was doing, and I kind of just pulled back and he said, ‘Come on man, I heard you liked me.’ And that phrase stayed with me because I kept thinking what I might’ve said and I can’t remember exactly if he said ‘i thought’ or ‘I heard’ but he implied that I had done this.”
Reade then went on to say that “everything shattered in that moment” because she knew that there were no witnesses and she looked up to him. “He was like my father’s age,” she said. “He was like this champion of women’s rights in my eyes and I couldn’t believe it was happening. It seemed surreal.”
Halper notes:
Tara’s brother and her good friend … recall being told about the assault by Tara at the time. This is a story that should have been looked into. Tara reached out to countless people to try to get her story out.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to deny ever doing anything inappropriate. Can we trust his memory?
