‘This never happened’: Joe Biden denies sexual assault allegation by former Senate staffer

Joe Biden on Friday denied a sexual assault allegation made against him by a former member of his Senate staff, making his first public statement on an issue that has become a weight on his presidential campaign.

The former vice president released a lengthy public statement and spent 20 minutes of a live interview on ‘Morning Joe’ repeatedly denying Tara Reade’s charge that he sexually assaulted her in a Senate hallway in the 1990s.

‘They aren’t true. This never happened,’ Biden said in a statement made shortly before he was scheduled to appear on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’

But he faced a intense series of questions from co-host Mika Brzezinski about why Reade shouldn’t be believed while other women should be. She also questioned Biden repeatedly about why he won’t open up his Senate papers, which are being archived at the University of Delaware. 

Brzezinski brought up Biden’s support for Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were in high school. 

‘Why is it real for Dr. Ford but not for Tara Reade?,’ she asked.

Biden fumbled a bit as he answered, bring up his long support for women’s rights, the right for women to be heard but arguing ‘ultimately the truth matters.’

‘They should come forward. They should be heard, and then it should be investigated,’ the former vice president said. ‘She makes the case or the case is made, then it should be believed, but ultimately the truth matters. The truth matters. It’s period.’  

‘I don’t know what else I can say to you,’ he added.

Brzezinski noted the long line of Democrats – including many prominent female politicians – who are supporting him in the matter.  

‘Are women to be believed unless it pertains to you?,’ she said.

‘Look, women are to be believed given the benefit of the doubt if they come forward and say something that is — that they said happened to them, they should start off with the presumption they’re telling the truth,’ Biden said. 

‘Then you have to look at the circumstances and the facts. And the facts in this case do not exist. They never happened, and there’s so many inconsistencies in what has been said in this case. So yes, look at the facts and I assure you it did not happen, period. Period,’ Biden said.

During the Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings in September 2018, Biden said he believed Ford was telling the truth.

‘For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time,’ he told reporters.

Brzezinski asked Biden: ‘Why is it different now? Do you regret what you said during the Kavanaugh hearings?’

‘What I said during the Kavanaugh hearings was that she had a right to be heard, and the fact that she came forward, the presumption would be she’s telling the truth unless it’s proved she wasn’t telling the truth,’ he said.  

Biden called on the National Archives to release any record they may have of the complaint, which Reade said she made at the time she was a Senate staffer, but he declined to open up his personal archives at the University of Delaware, saying those would not have any information relevant to Reade’s allegation.  

Biden said he didn’t remember any complaint Reade made.  He was careful to say her charge should be heard and investigated but he also pointed out her story has inconsistencies and news organizations have no other staffer to verify her claims. 

‘I don’t remember any type of complaint she may have made. It was 27 years ago. I don’t remember, nor does anyone else that I’m aware of. The fact that that I don’t remember any complaint ever been made,’ he said. 

‘This is an open book. There is nothing to hide,’ he said. Biden also said there is no NDA or any kind of signed agreement with Reade. 

The issue is a delicate one for the former vice president, who has stressed his record on women’s rights, expressed his regret to Anita Hill for how he handled the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and championed Christine Blasey Ford.

Biden was under heavy pressure from Democrats to address the issue personally after his campaign denied it and prominent members of the Democratic Party were getting questions on it.  

‘No. It is not true. I’m saying unequivocally it never happened and it didn’t,’ he told Brzezinski during their interview.

Tara Reade charged that, in 1993, when she was a member of his Senate staff, Biden put his hands up her skirt and penetrated her in a Congressional hallway.

Biden declined to address Reade’s motives in bringing about the complaint and pointed out no one else has made any similar charge against him.

‘I’m not going to question her motive or get into that at all. I don’t know why these she’s saying this. I don’t know why after 27 years this gets raised. I don’t understand that,’ Biden said.

‘I’m not going to go in and question her or attack her. She has a right to say whatever she says. I have a right to say, look at the facts, check it out. Based on the investigations that have taken place so far by the best of my knowledge by two major papers that interviewed dozens of my staff members, senior staff, that’s what they said. Nobody, this was not the atmosphere in my office at all. No one has said anything like this,’ he told MSNBC.

He emphasized Reade has a right to be heard and her charge should be investigated.

‘Any woman should come forward and be heard and then it should be investigated. If there is anything that is consistent with what is being said and she makes the case or the case is made, then it should be believed,’ he said. ‘At the end of the day, it has to be looked at. These claims are not true. They are not true.’

But he also pointed out her story as inconsistencies.  

‘Women are to be believed given the benefit of the doubt. If they come forward and say something that they said happened to them, they should start off with the presumption that they are telling the truth, then you have to look at the circumstances and the facts. The facts in this case never happened. There are so many inconsistencies in this case. Look at the fact. I can assure you it did not happen, period, period,’ he added. 

He declined to attack Reade personally.

‘I’m not going to start questioning her motive. I’m not going to get into that. I’m not going to go after Tara Reade for saying these things. It is the facts? Do any of the things she said, do they add up? It never happened,’ he said.  

Biden did not mention Reade by name in his statement but refers to her as his former staffer. In it, he also says her claim should be ‘subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny.’ 

‘While the details of these allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not complicated. One is that women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced. The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny,’ he said.

Biden pointed out that no other staffer from his Senate office could verify her claims.

‘She has said she raised some of these issues with her supervisor and senior staffers from my office at the time. They – both men and a woman – have said, unequivocally, that she never came to them and complained or raised issues. News organizations that have talked with literally dozens of former staffers have not found one – not one – who corroborated her allegations in any way. Indeed, many of them spoke to the culture of an office that would not have tolerated harassment in any way – as indeed I would not have,’ he noted in his statement.

He said news organizations should probe Reade’s allegation, adding her story ‘has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways.’

‘Responsible news organizations should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways,’ he said in his statement. 

The New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press conducted extensive investigations into Reade’s claim. The articles did not come to a conclusion either way on whether the assault occurred. 

Reade claims that in 1993, when she worked in Biden’s Senate office, he pinned her to a wall in a Senate building, reached under her clothing and penetrated her with his fingers.

She has told multiple news outlets she complained to others in Biden’s Senate office at the time, filed a report to a Senate personnel office, and said she was demoted after the incident.  She did not keep a copy of the report and one has not been located. 

Reade was one of several women who came forward last year to say Biden’s touching, hugging and kissing made them uncomfortable.  

Reade told The New York Times at the time that Biden had publicly stroked her neck, wrapped his fingers in her hair and touched her in ways that made her uncomfortable. 

She made her allegation of sexual assault on March 25, in a podcast interview.  

The former vice president was getting pressured by Democrats to personally address the allegation. His campaign repeatedly denied it but Biden had not spoke on it. 

Biden’s statement, which runs over 1,000 words, emphasizes his work on women’s issues, including his sponsorship of the Violence Against Women Act. 

His campaign has also been questioned on why it won’t open up his Senate archives, which are at the University of Delaware and will become public two years after he leaves public life. 

Biden said the archives would not contain any relevant information. 

‘There is a clear, critical part of this story that can be verified. The former staffer has said she filed a complaint back in 1993. But she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files. It is the practice of Senators to establish a library of personal papers that document their public record: speeches, policy proposals, positions taken, and the writing of bills,’ he said in his statement.

Brzezinski, during Biden’s interview on ‘Morning Joe,’ pressed him repeatedly on why he wouldn’t open up his personal papers. 

‘As we await for the records from the National Archives, are you absolutely certain — are you absolutely positive there is no record of any complaint by Tara Reade against you?,’ she asked.

‘I am absolutely positive that no one that I am aware of ever was been made aware of any complaint, a formal complaint made by or a complaint by Tara Reade against me at the time this allegedly happened 27 years ago or until I announced for — well, I guess it was in April or May of this year. I have — no one who’s aware that any complaint was made,’ Biden said.

Brzezinski then turned to his Senate archives being held at the University of Delaware, asking why they could be searched for anything on Reade. 

‘Why not just do a search for Tara Reade’s name?’ she asked.

‘Who does that search?’ Biden replied.

‘The University of Delaware? Perhaps you set up a commission that can do it? I don’t know. Whatever is the fairest way to create the most transparency,’ Brzezinski noted.

‘Look, Mika, she said she filed a report,’ Biden said. ‘She has her employment records still. She said she filed a report with the only office that would have a report in the United States senate at the time. If a report was ever filed, it was filed there, period.’

Biden also argued his Senate papers contain policy positions and other correspondent that political opponents could use against him.

‘There’s a lot of things that – of speeches I have made, positions I have taken, interviews that I did overseas with people, all of those things relating to my job. And the idea that they would all be made public and the fact while I was running for a public office they could be really taken out of context,’ he said.

‘The papers are position papers. They are documents that existed and that when I — for example when I go — when I met with Putin or when I met with whomever. And all of that to be fodder in a campaign at this time I don’t know of anybody who’s done anything like that,’ he added.

‘And so, the National Archives is the only place there would be anything having to do with personnel records. There are no personnel records in the Biden papers at the university,’ Biden said.  

Biden said the National Archives would hold employee records of the Senate and he requested the national depository search for any such record. 

‘There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be – the National Archives. The National Archives is where the records are kept at what was then called the Office of Fair Employment Practices. I am requesting that the Secretary of the Senate ask the Archives to identify any record of the complaint she alleges she filed and make available to the press any such document. If there was ever any such complaint, the record will be there,’ he said in his statement.

Reade told ABC News that her complaint to the Senate personnel office was about her ‘being made to feel uncomfortable’ at work. She ‘did not, at the time, report anything about an alleged assault’ and she has no record of the complaint.

A spokesperson for the National Archives told Business Insider that Senate employment records, which, in the 1990s, were in the Office of Fair Employment Practices, are not with them but were subject to a Senate resolution that requires ‘records containing personal privacy, information closed by statute, and records of executive nomination are closed for 50 years.’

So, if Reade’s complaint was filed to the Office of Fair Employment Practices, the record will remain closed until 2043 — more than two decades from now.

The National Archives spokesperson also said that, in the 1990s, the process of filing a complaint was long and difficult, involving multiple steps and that could have discouraged an investigation. Capitol Hill is still dealing with how complaints are filed and handled after several lawmakers were accused of harassment in the wake of the #metoo movement.

And the University of Delaware said Biden’s Senate files were still being curated.

‘The University of Delaware received the Biden Senatorial Papers as a gift from Vice President Biden. We are currently curating the collection, a process that we estimate will carry at least into the spring of 2021,’ spokeswoman Andrea Boyle told CNN. ‘As the curating process is not complete, the papers are not yet available to the public, and we are not able to identify what documents or files can be found within the collection.’ 

Around the time Biden launched his presidential campaign, several women came forward to say they felt uncomfortable when the former vice president would do things like squeeze their shoulders or touch their hair. Biden eventually apologized for his behavior and vowed to be more mindful in the future.

But Reade is the only woman to detail an assault allegation against Biden, who has emphasized his work for women’s issues.

Republicans have sought to portray Democrats as hypocrites, pointing out the difference in the treatment Biden has received compared to Kavanaugh.

‘I think that he should respond,’ President Donald Trump told reporters at an event in the White House’s East Room on Thursday. ‘It could be false accusations. I know all about false accusations. I have been falsely charged numerous times.’

In the past, the president has been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. 

Biden was quick to draw a contrast with President Trump in his statement.

‘We have lived long enough with a President who doesn’t think he is accountable to anyone, and takes responsibility for nothing. That’s not me. I believe being accountable means having the difficult conversations, even when they are uncomfortable. People need to hear the truth,’ he said.’ 

Trump’s campaign attacked Biden for a double standard.

‘The only thing Joe Biden did today was dig himself a deeper hole,’ said Trump 2020 Principal Deputy Communications Director Erin Perrine in a statement. ‘He once again demonstrated that he believes he should be held to a different standard than he has set for others.’

The Trump campaign pointed out that Biden made it clear during the Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings that all women should be heard and pointed out Biden criticized Mike Bloomberg for a lack of transparency with women who signed NDAs with his company about their treatment there.

‘While he called for the complete release of Mike Bloomberg’s documents related to complaints against him, Biden made clear he does not want his University of Delaware records released because they could be used against him in the campaign. He also falsely said those records are not ready to be made public,’ Perrine said. 

Trump’s campaign said the interview did not offer closure on the question of what happened between Biden and Reade.

‘There will be a great temptation among Biden’s supporters to take his lackluster interview performance and declare ‘case closed’ and move on. We do not know what, if anything, was done to Tara Reade, but there cannot be one set of rules for Joe Biden and another set for everyone else,’ Perrine said.

Democrats were quick to applaud Biden for addressing the allegations.

 ‘I am pleased that the Vice President directly addressed these allegations and by how he addressed them. Women and all people should be heard, and they deserve a safe space and process through which they can come forward,’ said Georgia’s Stacey Abrams, who is said to be on the short list for Biden’s running mate.

Tim Kaine, who was the vice presidential nominee in 2016, said the archives needs to release whatever files it has. 

‘I think anyone has an allegation like this has to be taken seriously. Yes, reporters should dig into it. Yes, we should get the files from the archives. But I think he will be able to get by this in the minds of American voters,’ he said on MSNBC on Friday afternoon. 

Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, who had ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Biden was right to call for the records to be released.

‘The vice president calling for an investigation into any records that exist is the right thing to do,’ he said on Fox News Friday.

Meanwhile, Reade spoke Wednesday with The New York Times’ media columnist Ben Smith about what looked like uneven media treatment in comparison to women who have made accusations against conservatives including President Trump and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.   

She said major networks ‘are not offering to put me on TV – they’re just doing stories. No anchors, no nothing like that.’ 

Major newspapers and news outlets have interviewed Reade and investigated her story.

The Times, in its lengthy piece about the incident published iin early April, talked to multiple former Biden Senate staffers and interns in that office about the allegation along with supporters of Reade. 

A friend of Reade’s told The Times Reade told her the details of the allegation at the time. Another friend and Reade’s brother said she told them over the years about a traumatic sexual incident involving Biden. 

Reade’s initial story was told by a podcast and publications that were friendly to Bernie Sanders’ side of the Democratic Party. Reade supported Sanders in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

She first told her story journalist Katie Halper for her ‘Katie Halper Show’ podcast on March 25. Reade was then interviewed by Hill.TV and Vox.  

Reade, too, was supportive of Sanders in tweets – allowing the progressive-versus-moderate Democratic split displayed in the last two presidential primaries to taint the Biden accuser’s claims. 

Since then, Business Insider has produced reporting that corroborates Reade’s claims. 

A neighbor of Reade told Business Insider that she recalled hearing about the alleged assault during the era in which Reade said the incident occurred. 

‘This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it,’ she told the publication. 

Another source, a woman named Lorraine Sanchez who worked with Reade in the office of a state senator in the mid 1990s, told the publication that she recalled Reade saying she was fired after raising concerns about sexual harassment from her former boss.  

These women came forward after a clip came out that allegedly includes the voice of Reade’s mother phoning into ‘Larry King Live’ in 1993 and asking if her daughter should go to the press about a ‘prominent senator’ behaving badly.  

In her initial interview with Halper, Reade said the assault occurred after she was told to deliver a gym bag to the then-senator. Reade said she tracked down Biden on Capitol Hill and he remembered her name. 

 ‘And then we were alone. And it was the strangest thing. There was no, like, exchange really, he just had me up against the wall,’ she said. 

She said she was wearing a work skirt, but no pantyhose. 

‘He just had me up against the wall and the wall was cold,’ she said. ‘His hands were on me and underneath my clothes. He went down my skirt and then up inside it and he penetrated me with his fingers. He was kissing me at the same time,’ she said. 

She said that when she ‘pulled back,’ Biden ‘looked annoyed.’ 

Reade said Biden said to her, ‘Come on man, I heard you liked me.’ 

‘He implied that I had done this,’ she told the podcast host.  

At first Reade didn’t want to mention the other quote that got stuck in her head, but then she told Halper what it was. 

‘You’re nothing to me,’ she claimed the senator said to her. ‘Nothing.’ 

Reade shared her interview with Halper on her now-locked Twitter account adding, ‘Please stay in Bernie.’       

Biden’s inaction has been putting female surrogates in tough positions. 

Soccer star Megan Rapinoe – who previously supported Biden’s primary rival Elizabeh Warren – appeared on Instagram Live with the ex-vice president and his wife Jill on Thursday and was excoriated for not asking about Reade. 

‘You’ve always been my hero. Why didn’t you ask him about the sexual assault allegations? I’m really disappointed in what I thought you were,’ one Instagram user lamented. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lashed out at a reporter Thursday morning for pointing out her very different reaction to assault claims waged against Kavanaugh versus Biden. 

‘Well let me just say, I respect your question, and I don’t need a lecture or a speech,’ Pelosi said. ‘I have complete respect for the Me Too movement. I have four daughters and one son, and there’s a lot of excitement around the idea that women will be heard and be listened to.’ 

‘There is also due process,’ Pelosi said. 

She previously said she was ‘satisfied’ by Biden’s response to the allegations. 

Pelosi endorsed Biden for president earlier this week.   

Stacey Abrams, who’s likely on the list of female vice presidential picks, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a formal 2020 hopeful, have also gotten heat for their support of Biden.