Constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley said former Vice President Joe Biden should allow record searches at the University of Delaware.
After Biden’s Friday appearance on MSNBC to address allegations of sexual assault personally, Turley, a professor at the George Washington University Law School who was an impeachment witness, said the presidential candidate should not refuse searches for Tara Reade’s name within records at his alma mater.
“Biden should have no objection to a search of any reference to any complaint by anyone housed at Delaware. It is like a witness insisting that he is perfectly happy with a search of his farm but then becoming angry when asked if he would allow a search of his house,” Turley said in a series of tweets.
Biden should have no objection to a search of any reference to any complaint by anyone housed at Delaware. It is like a witness insisting that he is perfectly happy with a search of his farm but then becoming angry when asked if he would allow a search of his house…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 1, 2020
“This is a flashlight search where a witness tells police to look only where he is shining the light. This calls for sunlight not a flashlight. I found Biden quite credible up to that point. The solution is to allow searches in both sites of any misconduct allegation by anyone,” he said.
This is a flashlight search where a witness tells police to look only where he is shining the light. This calls for sunlight not a flashlight. I found Biden quite credible up to that point. The solution is to allow searches in both sites of any misconduct allegation by anyone.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 1, 2020
Biden was recently accused of sexual assault by Reade, who was his Senate aide from 1992 to 1993. According to Reade, Biden ran his hand underneath her skirt and penetrated her with his fingers at the time. Biden denied the claim.
“The former staffer has said she filed a complaint back in 1993. But she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files. It is the practice of senators to establish a library of personal papers that document their public record: speeches, policy proposals, positions taken, and the writing of bills,” Biden said Friday morning in a statement.
Biden insisted the papers from his Senate years that he donated to the University of Delaware “do not contain personnel files” and asserted that any complaints filed by Reade, should they exist, would exist in the National Archives.
“There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be — the National Archives. 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,” Biden said in the statement.
