Joe Biden’s campaign circulated damage-control talking points about Tara Reade’s harassment and assault allegations that reference a line in a New York Times story that was edited after publication due in part to a complaint by the Biden campaign.
BuzzFeed News, which obtained the talking points, reported Tuesday that the campaign started circulating talking points to top supporters shortly after the New York Times published an investigation into Reade’s claims earlier this month.
Reade, 56, worked in Biden’s Senate office in 1993, during which time she says he inappropriately touched her hair and neck and one time penetrated her with his fingers while forcibly kissing her. Biden’s campaign has denied the allegations, though the candidate himself has not addressed them.
Portions of the talking points could be heard in some high-profile Democrats’ responses to the allegations.
“The New York Times did a deep investigation. And they found that the accusation was not credible. I believe Joe Biden,” said former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who is campaigning to be Biden’s vice presidential pick, in a Tuesday CNN interview.
The talking points begin:
The final sentence the Biden campaign quotes from the New York Times story originally read: “The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.”
New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet indicated that the second half of the sentence was deleted as a result of a complaint from the Biden campaign.
“I think that the campaign thought that the phrasing was awkward and made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct. And that’s not what the sentence was intended to say,” Baquet said. “We didn’t think it was a factual mistake. I thought it was an awkward phrasing issue that could be read different ways and that it wasn’t something factual we were correcting.”
The talking points continue with four bullet points:
The New York Times story reports that Reade said she made an official complaint about alleged harassment, but not the alleged sexual assault, to three people: Marianne Baker, a former executive assistant in Biden’s Senate office; Dennis Toner, Biden’s then-deputy chief of staff; and Ted Kaufman, Biden’s then-chief of staff.
Baker did not directly speak to the New York Times or other outlets. The Biden campaign provided news organizations with a written statement from Baker. Toner, who is now a consultant based in Delaware, told multiple outlets that he does not remember Reade. Kaufman, who later became a senator and is now working on Biden’s transition planning team, also said he did not remember Reade.
Another staff member who worked for Biden at the same time as Reade, Melissa Lefko, also spoke to the New York Times and several other outlets on the record defending Biden’s character but was not mentioned as one of the people Reade complained to.
The final three bullet points read:
● “Here’s the bottom line: Vice President Joe Biden has spent over 40 years in public life: 36 years in the Senate; 7 Senate campaigns, 2 previous presidential runs, two vice presidential campaigns, and 8 years in the White House. There has never been a complaint, allegation, hint or rumor of any impropriety or inappropriate conduct like this regarding him — ever.
● “Biden believes that all women have the right to be heard and to have their claims thoroughly reviewed. In this case, a thorough review by the New York Times has led to the truth: this incident did not happen.”
The New York Times story did not make a determination about whether Reade’s alleged assault and harassment happened or not.
It also does not include new evidence that could boost Reade’s claims. On Monday, Reade’s former neighbor and a former colleague revealed that Reade told them in the ’90s that she was assaulted or harassed, potentially corroborating her story. On Friday, Reade identified her now-deceased mother’s voice in uncovered 1993 Larry King Live show footage. A woman caller told King about her daughter’s difficulty voicing “problems” with a “prominent senator.”
