When Justice Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault in high school, on a date and in a place the victim could not recall, there was little hope of settling the matter via contemporaneous records. But Kavanaugh had more than anyone expected and provided it for inspection. It included personal calendars recording everything he had done during the summer in question.
This evidence, although not definitive, cast further doubt on the idea that Kavanaugh had even met, let alone assaulted, Christine Blasey Ford. His transparency did not settle the matter for partisans, but it put allies’ minds at ease, leading to his exoneration and confirmation to the Supreme Court.
There are similarities now with the more recent and better corroborated allegations of sexual assault against Joe Biden. Like Kavanaugh, the Democrats’ presidential nominee deserves the presumption of innocence. But he is wearing that presumption thin by refusing to provide records of the alleged incident, if they exist among his papers at the University of Delaware.
His insistence that the records remain closed is untenable. It represents a grave disservice to his supporters.
Unless the former vice president allows an unbiased and untainted search into any papers related to former staffer Tara Reade, the woman who accuses him of assault, his denials must be doubted. He made matters worse Friday by excusing his actions with nonsense and double talk.
“The fact is that there are a lot of things … speeches that I made … the idea that they all would be made public while I was running for office could really be taken out of context,” Biden told MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, defending his opacity. “All of that could be fodder in a campaign. At this time, I don’t know of anyone who has done anything like that.”
He also claimed it would be wrong to divulge “confidential conversations” he had with a president “or with foreign leaders.”
These explanations are ridiculous. How can his speeches become a national secret? And the university’s argument against disclosure, that the collection is “still being curated,” is tendentious. But for the sake of argument, let’s accept them at face value. Even then, it does not answer Brzezinski’s follow-up question: Why not at least allow a search only for documents containing Reade’s name?
While slamming the records shut, Biden had the temerity to claim he is an “open book.”
He said nobody on his staff ever heard from Reade even informally about Biden’s conduct. This categorical statement can be verified only by searching records. Those at the National Archives, to which Biden has directed all inquiries, contain only official personnel files and claims of misconduct. Informal complaints, as Biden knows well, would not be housed there. If they exist, they would be somewhere in the 1,875 boxes of materials from his 36 years in the Senate stored at the University of Delaware, which presumably contain internal memos, staff notes, and the like. It would be easy for a professional librarian to do a search for Reade’s name.
Biden wants to have his cake and eat it, too. He claims to favor transparency and told Brzezinski that women “should start out with the presumption that they are telling the truth.” Yet he also says women’s claims should be “fully vetted” and prevents Reade’s from being checked by hiding the relevant documents from the public.
None of this assumed Biden is guilty. A lack of similar allegations against him during 47 years of public life and discrepancies in Reade’s story point to giving Biden the benefit of the doubt. But, by refusing to come clean, Biden looks like he is hiding something.
Democrats will not select their nominee until August, and their chance of ousting President Trump may depend on looking less hypocritical. They, above all others, should demand that Biden produce his records. They won’t, of course.
