WASHINGTON — Joe Biden on Friday called for the release of any potential records related to a former staffer’s claim of sexual assault, as the Democratic presidential hopeful again insisted the allegation against him was false.
“They aren’t true. This never happened,” Biden said in a written statement released just before appearing for an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” where he reiterated his denial.
“It is not true, I am saying unequivocally it never never happened and it didn’t,” Biden said in the interview. “It never happened.”
Calling the allegations “complicated,” he went on to say that women “deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”
“When they step forward they should be heard, not silenced,” he said, but added: “Their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny.”
“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,” Biden continued.
Most notably, he cites Reade’s assertion in multiple media interviews that she filed a personnel complaint with the U.S. Senate alleging she faced harassment in Biden’s office. Reade told NBC News that her complaint, significantly, did not accuse Biden of assault.
“She does not have a record of this alleged complaint,” Biden noted. Addressing calls from some to release any records that his personal Senate papers, now being archived at the University of Delaware, Biden said those papers “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.
“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.”
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Biden’s comments came in a lengthy statement that began by marking the end of Sexual Assault Awareness month. Biden said that as “someone who wants to lead this country,” he recognized his responsibility “to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere finished.”
He also promoted his work in writing the Violence Against Women Act, as well as the “It’s On Us” campaign he launched in the White House focused on addressing sexual assault on college campuses.
“As a Presidential candidate, I’m accountable to the American people. 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,” he said. “I believe being accountable means having the difficult conversations, even when they are uncomfortable. People need to hear the truth.”
The comments from Biden were his first direct response to Reade’s allegation of sexual assault since she first publicly detailed it in a March 26 interview with podcast host Katie Halper.
Off the campaign trail and largely sequestered in his Delaware home for more than a month, Biden also had not been asked about the allegation in any of the 10 national and local television interviews he’s conducted since mainstream media outlets including NBC News reported it.
In an interview earlier this month, Reade told NBC News that she was asked to deliver a gym bag to Biden sometime in spring 1993 and met up with him in an empty corridor somewhere in the Capitol complex. She alleged that Biden began kissing her and ran his hands up her shirt and under her skirt, penetrating her with his fingers. When she pulled away, Biden first said “You’re nothing to me,” she said, then tried to reassure her, before walking away.
Reade said that while she never came forward about what she said was an assault to her superiors in Biden’s office, she was vocal about feeling harassed and made uncomfortable during the months she worked there.
That account went beyond what Reade had told her local newspaper in California last year just days after a former Nevada lawmaker had detailed what she considered inappropriate physical contact when Biden had campaigned for her. Reade initially alleged that Biden had touched her several times in a way that made her feel uncomfortable, but did not accuse him of sexual assault. Reade told NBC that she didn’t feel comfortable telling her full story then.
The Biden campaign denied the allegation, saying it was clearly “untrue” and “absolutely did not happen.” Other former Biden staffers rejected it as out of character for Biden and said they were unaware of it at the time.
Reade’s more recent allegation initially gained traction slowly, and primarily among Biden’s political opponents. But the New York Times, the Washington Post the Associated Press and NBC News all published comprehensive stories about Reade’s account on April 12, shortly after she filed a police report in Washington, D.C.
Since then, Reade’s allegation has steadily gained attention and also scrutiny. And prominent Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several possible Biden vice presidential selections, have been asked about it, with all largely defending Biden.
“I have great sympathy for any woman who brings forth allegations. I do support Joe Biden,” Pelosi said in a CNN interview Thursday.
NBC’s reporting was based on multiple conversations with Reade and others with whom she said she had shared varying degrees of detail about the incident. Three of those people said on the record that they did not recall any such conversation with Reade. A fourth – who asked that her name be withheld – said Reade told her about an alleged assault, while the fifth recalled Reade telling her about inappropriate touching but not an assault.
This week, a former neighbor of Reade’s, Lynda LaCasse, told NBC News that she also had been told by Reade about the alleged assault several years after it occurred. And Reade told NBC News last week that the voice of a woman who called “Larry King Live” in 1993 to talk about “problems” her daughter had while working for a “prominent senator” was her mother’s. NBC News has not been able to verify that. Her mother died in 2016.
Asked about the Reade allegation Thursday, President Donald Trump said he was unaware of it, but that Biden should respond. “It could be false allegations, I know all about false accusations. I’ve been falsely charged numerous times. There’s such a thing,” he said.
More than a dozen women have alleged that Trump sexually harassed or assaulted them. The president denies their accounts.