When Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, just before an expected confirmation vote, was accused of committing sexual assault, Joe Biden was advocating for a standard in which any woman willing to come forward should be presumed to be 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,” Biden said.
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Now, Biden’s statement is being put to the test, given that a former female aide has come forward to claim that Biden sexually assaulted her in the early 1990s.
The accuser, Tara Reade, first came forward in April 2019, after Biden’s habit of awkwardly touching women and young girls on camera started to receive attention. At the time, Lucy Flores, a former Nevada state assemblywoman, had gone public with her claim that Biden had touched her inappropriately and kissed her on her head during a 2014 Democratic campaign rally. Biden responded to Flores with a general statement saying he never acted inappropriately.
Reade said that the account of Flores seemed accurate to her based on her own experiences. She told a local newspaper in Nevada that when she was a staffer for Biden in 1993, he had engaged in unwanted touching that made her feel uncomfortable. “Reade said her responsibilities in the senator’s office were reduced after she refused to serve drinks at an event — what she called a desire of Biden’s because he liked her legs,” according to the account.
After she went public and after Atlantic staff writer Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote a thread on Twitter citing past writings in which Reade praised Russian leader Vladimir Putin, she decided not to pursue the matter further.
Now, however, she has been willing to speak out in more detail. Reade described an incident to podcast host Katie Halper in which she said: “I remember I was wearing a blouse, and [Biden] just had me up against the wall. And the wall was cold. It happened all at once. … His hands were on me and underneath my clothes. Yeah, and he went down my skirt but then up inside it, and he penetrated me with his fingers, and he was kissing me at the same time, and he was saying something to me.”
Halper reported that she spoke to a close friend and to her brother at the time. Both recall Reade telling them about the incident contemporaneously. Reade told HillTV that she tried to seek help from Time’s Up, a group that is supposed to help women financially who come forward. But she claims the organization declined, saying that, since the accusation was against a presidential candidate, it was too political, and the group didn’t want to endanger its nonprofit status.
To be clear, we are not taking a position on the credibility of Reade’s accusation one way or another. The Intercept reported that Reade has been a supporter of Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, so there are certainly legitimate questions that could be asked about the timing.
We support due process. Female accusers deserve to be heard and to have their claims evaluated fairly based on the evidence. For too long, men in powerful positions have gotten away with inappropriate behavior because their victims feared speaking out, and it’s imperative to create an environment in which women feel like they will be supported and listened to if they come forward. But, at the same time, those who are accused should not be automatically treated as if they were guilty.
But for Biden and other Democrats who pushed the “believe all women” standard during the Kavanaugh nomination fight, it’s deeply cynical to abandon it now in the face of an accusation against the party’s likely nominee.
