Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Friday denied an allegation of sexual assault by a former Senate aide, Tara Reade, his first public remarks about an accusation that has roiled his presidential campaign.
“I recognize my responsibility to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished,” Mr. Biden wrote in a Medium post. “So I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago. They aren’t true. This never happened.”
Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, also called on the National Archives to release any existing complaint related to the allegation.
In an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, Mr. Biden said of Ms. Reade’s claim, “No, it is not true. I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened.”
Responding to questions from Mika Brzezinski, the show’s co-host, Mr. Biden said that all women had a right to be heard when they come forward with allegations, and then the facts need to be examined. But he strenuously insisted that in his case, “I assure you it did not happen. Period. Period.”
At issue is an allegation from Ms. Reade, a former aide in his Senate office, who has said that Mr. Biden assaulted her in 1993, when he was a senator from Delaware. His campaign has said her account is false, but Mr. Biden, who has participated in virtual fund-raisers and local television interviews in recent days, had not raised the matter himself or faced public questioning on the subject.
His silence until now on an issue that surfaced weeks ago had frustrated some Democrats and is the latest example of Mr. Biden’s attracting criticism for a slow response in the face of a controversy.
Amid intensifying scrutiny around the allegation, there have been growing calls for Mr. Biden to release his Senate papers, held at the University of Delaware. In the Medium post, Mr. Biden said that those papers “do not contain personnel files.”
“There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be — the National Archives,” he wrote. “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.”
In one long exchange, Ms. Brzezinski repeatedly pressed Mr. Biden on why he wouldn’t allow a search for any documents related to Ms. Reade at the University of Delaware, to which he responded several times “they’re not there,” asserting that no personnel files were housed at the university.
The statement comes as a number of women’s rights advocates and organizations have called on Mr. Biden to address the matter, and as several people have corroborated parts of Ms. Reade’s claim, saying they recalled her sharing elements of the story years ago. In his statement, Mr. Biden said that women who make allegations “should be heard, not silenced,” but their stories also warrant scrutiny. He went on to raise “the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways.”
While Mr. Biden had remained quiet on the subject until Friday, a number of prominent Democrats have been pressed on the matter and have sided with Mr. Biden even as Republicans and some activists on the left have been sharply critical.
“I want to remove all doubt in anyone’s mind: I have a great comfort level with the situation as I see it, with all due respect in the world for any woman who comes forward, with all the highest regard for Joe Biden,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday.
“There is a lot of excitement around the idea that women will be heard and be listened to,” she said, expressing “complete respect” for the #MeToo movement. “There is also due process, and the fact that Joe Biden is Joe Biden.”
Some of Mr. Biden’s potential running mates, including Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kamala Harris of California, as well as Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia House minority leader, have also voiced support for Mr. Biden, noting his work, for instance, on the Violence Against Women Act.
Some Republicans have sought to paint Democrats as hypocrites, suggesting that they are holding Ms. Reade’s allegation to a different standard compared with the one used for accusations of sexual assault against Brett M. Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 2018.
“I think he should respond,” President Trump said of Mr. Biden on Thursday, as his campaign signaled this week it intended to make the allegation a campaign issue. “It could be false accusations.”
Mr. Trump has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault and harassment and was caught on a recording bragging about groping women without their consent.
In his statement, Mr. Biden sought to draw sharp distinctions with Mr. Trump.
“We have lived long enough with a president who doesn’t think he is accountable to anyone, and takes responsibility for nothing,” he said. “That’s not me. I believe being accountable means having the difficult conversations, even when they are uncomfortable. People need to hear the truth.”
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
