Sen. Dianne Feinstein called the allegations made by Tara Reade against Joe Biden “ridiculous,” a starkly different reaction than the one the California Democrat exhibited when Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh faced sexual misconduct allegations during his confirmation process.
Feinstein, who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she does not believe that Biden sexually harassed or assaulted Reade while she worked in his Senate office in 1993. The senator claimed Reade would have come forward with her allegations when Biden was vice president if her story was real.
“I don’t know this person at all who has made the allegations. She came out of nowhere. Where has she been all these years? He was vice president,” Feinstein told reporters, later adding, “To attack him in this way to me is absolutely ridiculous.”
“Why didn’t she say something — you know when he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee or after that?” Feinstein said.
Reade, now 56, came out this year to allege Biden, who is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, sexually harassed her and assaulted her by forcibly kissing her and penetrating her with his fingers. Reade said she complained about the harassment when it was happening but not the assault to top staff members who deny ever hearing from her. Friends of Reade said they remember hearing about what happened to a varying extent of detail. Reade also claimed it was her mother who called in to Larry King’s show in 1993 and described the situation without naming anyone. Sexual harassment in Biden’s office was mentioned in Reade’s 1996 divorce filings.
During Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation process in 2018, Feinstein was one of Christine Blasey Ford’s most prominent defenders as she alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in high school. None of the people who were said to have been at the party corroborated Ford’s allegations. Kavanaugh denied Ford’s allegations, as well as those of several other women, and he was confirmed to the high court in the fall of 2018.
When asked why Feinstein supported Ford but not Reade, Feinstein said the two incidents were “totally different” and not “comparable.” She added, “Kavanaugh was under the harshest inspection that we give people over a substantial period of time.”
Feinstein responded to questions about whether she believed Reade, saying, “No, I do not.”
Biden has denied the allegations made by Reade.
