Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton ignored Tara Reade’s allegation of sexual assault and harassment during a virtual town hall event focused on women’s issues during the coronavirus crisis.
“Call that hotline, don’t suffer in silence,” Clinton, who endorsed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee earlier in the conversation, told those suffering from domestic violence in the livestream on Tuesday.
“Violence against women is a huge problem, and especially right now. I’ve worked very hard on trying to end violence against women,” Biden said, referencing the Violence Against Women Act, while answering a question about domestic violence. “It’s been one of the leading causes of my life.”
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 all allegations, though the candidate himself has not addressed them.
The Biden and Clinton livestream came a day after Reade’s former neighbor and a former colleague revealed that Reade told them in the early ’90s that she was assaulted, potentially corroborating her story. On Friday, Reade identified her now-deceased mother’s voice in uncovered 1993 Larry King show footage. A woman caller told King about her daughter’s difficulty voicing “problems” with a “prominent senator.”
Reade says she complained to several top staffers about the harassment, not the assault, and was retaliated against in part by losing supervision over office interns and being told to find a new job. Three top staffers, one of which is a close ally of Biden, vehemently deny hearing about her allegations, but two former interns have said they remember Reade abruptly losing intern supervision duties.
Clinton faced criticism from President Trump when she ran against him in 2016 for how she handled allegations of sexual assault against her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
“Bill Clinton was abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women,” Trump, who also faces multiple allegations of sexual assault, said in an October 2016 debate against Clinton. Trump invited four of Clinton’s accusers — Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Kathy Shelton — to that debate in what Clinton’s campaign called a “stunt.”
Trump’s presidential campaign on Tuesday shared an old video of Clinton saying: “I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault. You have a right to be heard, and you have a right to be believed.”
Reade has called on Biden to address her claim directly.
“A reporter needs to ask Joe Biden about the sexual harassment and sexual assault,” Reade told the Washington Examiner in an interview on Monday.
