A sexual assault accusation against presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden that was largely neglected in the mainstream media when it appeared last month is starting to draw in more attention, making long stories in both The New York Times and Washington Post in recent days– but prominent Democrats continue to stay quiet on the story, including most of the females who have actually been gone over as potential vice presidential picks.
The Biden project adamantly denies the allegation, as does a former team member in Biden’s Senate office from the time of the alleged occurrence.
Fox News on Tuesday reached out to the workplaces of 16 of the ladies who have been hypothesized about as possible Democratic vice governmental candidates, including Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., along with Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., previous Deputy Attorney general of the United States Sally Yates and a number of others. None responded as of Wednesday early morning.
In this image from video provided by the Biden for President project, Democratic governmental prospect former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a virtual press rundown Wednesday, March 25,2020 (Biden for President through AP).
BIDEN CAMPAIGN ADAMANTLY REJECTS ALLEGATION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT
Just 3 of the potential choices have commented openly on the accusations, all today. And they generally prevented commenting on the claims directly.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., was asked about the allegations in a look on NPR Tuesday. She said women have the right to be heard and indicated investigations by the media into the claims, while promoting Biden’s previous work on behalf of ladies.
“[I] n this case– and your listeners must look at the story– there was an extensive review by The New York Times. And I believe that’s very crucial to have, specifically involving public figures,” she said. “However I think when I look at– when I see Vice President Biden, somebody I worked with, I see him on– a leader on domestic abuse– led the costs prior to people were even ready to discuss those dreadful criminal offenses and has truly been a champ of abuses of power against females and has actually used his voice on the domestic abuse front in such a big way.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on her endorsement of Biden Wednesday, noted that the “accusations are being aired openly” while stating that she wanted to prevent commenting even more until she had found out more into the story.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, on NPR Tuesday, made similar comments.
” Well, I believe ladies should be able to inform their stories,” Whitmer stated, while noting the significance of vetting the allegations. She said “it’s hard to give you greater insight than that, not understanding more about the situation.”
Biden has been implicated of sexual attack by a lady called Tara Reade, who was a personnel assistant to Biden when he was a senator. Reade came forward early in 2015 to state that Biden wrongly touched her– as several women did around that time– but didn’t get much promotion for her story beyond a regional news article.
However late last month Reade provided an extremely different and more graphic account of her interaction with Biden, which presumably occurred in 1993, that raised the level of the claims to sexual assault. Reade’s story first resurfaced in a short article in The Intercept. She then was spoken with by podcast host Katie Halper, to whom she detailed the supposed attack, including saying that Biden “permeated me with his fingers and he was kissing me at the exact same time and he was saying some things to me.”
Both the Biden campaign and a former executive assistant to Biden have called the allegation “false.”
BIDEN ACCUSER TARA READE PLEDGES NEVER TO VOTE ‘IN A NATIONAL ELECTION AGAIN … I WILL NOT ELECT JOE BIDEN’
” Females have a right to inform their story, and reporters have a commitment to rigorously veterinarian those claims. We motivate them to do so, since these allegations are false,” Biden Deputy Campaign Supervisor Kate Bedingfield said in a statement on the Reade’s accusation.
” In all my years working for Senator Biden, I never ever as soon as seen, or become aware of, or gotten, any reports of unsuitable conduct, duration– not from Ms. Reade, not from anybody,” Marianne Baker, who worked for Biden’s Senate workplace as an executive assistant from 1982 to 2000, said. “I have absolutely no knowledge or memory of Ms. Reade’s accounting of occasions, which would have left a searing impression on me as a lady expert, and as a supervisor. These clearly incorrect claims are in total contradiction to both the inner workings of our Senate workplace and to the man I know and worked so carefully with for almost two decades.”
Reade filed a report with Washington, D.C., authorities on Thursday worrying her allegation that Biden permeated her without permission in1993 Fox News has confirmed with the District’s authorities department that she filed the criminal problem, which does not reference Biden by name.
Reade, who previously openly promoted for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, has actually stated that she will not vote for Joe Biden in November.
” I will not ever vote in a national election again,” Reade said in a statement to Fox News. “In spite of the reality I come from a household of Democrats. I worked for Leon Panetta, [California] State Sen. Jack O’Connell and Joe Biden. I strove for the Democratic Party as a young woman. It is apparent by the remarkable smears about me leveled by Biden project and advocates after I came forward about Biden and the complete absence of assistance from any Democrat that they care more about safeguarding Joe Biden than resolving the serious allegations by me and the other seven ladies who complained about his misbehavior.”
She continued: “Kamala Harris is my representative and I connected to her for aid. No action. Joe Biden sexually assaulted and bugged me. All the rest of political discussion is sound and an effort to distract from the major lack of justice I experienced at his hands. Stepping forward has actually been hard and led to 1993 with the loss of my task and career. Stepping forward last spring 2019 about the unwanted sexual advances resulted with his fans smearing me online. And now, again. So, no, I will not vote for Joe Biden.”
Regardless of the Biden rejections, the story has moved on– if slowly– in current weeks.
The New York Times ran a story Sunday which stated it might not “substantiate any information of Ms. Reade’s accusation” and found no pattern of such behavior by Biden, however likewise discussed the paper had spoken with two of Reade’s pals who say she had formerly informed them about the alleged attack.
The Washington Post also ran a long story on the Reade accusations Sunday.
SANDERS AIDE CALLS BIDEN SEXUAL ATTACK ALLEGATION ‘CREDIBLE’
Also Sunday, previous Sanders campaign National Press Secretary Briahna Delight Gray described Reade’s story as “[c] redible sexual attack claims” as she listed off a variety of issues she thought Sanders “generously” did not raise versus Biden throughout the Democratic primary. She is among a couple of scattered liberal voices who are promoting that the Reade claims be taken seriously, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and liberal activist Rose McGowan.
” As a survivor, the way you released into this woman’s attack is truly disgusting,” McGowan tweeted Sunday about the Washington Post story on the Reade claims. “Your motto is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ well I guess it’s dead because you are dark. Evil lives and it likes the DNC.”
” I think it’s genuine to discuss these things,” Ocasio-Cortez stated while talking with the females’s company The Wing on Tuesday night, according to CBS News. “And if we want, if we, once again, wish to have integrity, you can’t say, you understand– both believe ladies, support all of this, till it inconveniences you, until it troubles us.”
New York City TIMES EDITS BIDEN SEXUAL ASSAULT PROTECTION, DELETES REFERENCES TO PAST INAPPROPRIATE ‘HUGS, KISSES AND TOUCHING’
Biden has previously indicated that he believes ladies who bring forward sexual assault claims need to be presumed to be telling the fact.
” For a lady to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you have actually got to start off with the anticipation that at least the essence of what she’s speaking about is real, whether or not she forgets truths, whether or not it’s been intensified or better gradually,” Biden told the Washington Post as allegations of sexual attack swirled around the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in2018 ” But nobody stops working to comprehend that this resembles delving into a cauldron.”
Biden, nevertheless, has not appeared to suffer any political effects from the Reade allegations up until now, protecting endorsements from Sanders and previous President Obama in recent days even as the allegations swirled.
The previous vice president, who has stated he will choose a lady to be his VP, has actually also not gotten any public pushback from his prospective vice presidential candidates. It’s unclear if that will change as the Democratic National Convention moves closer and the presidential election eventually steals back some media headlines after it has been thoroughly upstaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
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President Trump, who has actually been the topic of his own sexual assault and harassment allegations in the past, has also not commented on the Reade accusations against Biden.
In addition to Harris, Warren, Demings and Yates, Fox News reached out to 12 other Democrats who have been hypothesized about as possible running mates for Biden, inquiring for comment on the sexual attack claims versus the presumptive candidate.
Fox News reached out to Klobuchar; Whitmer; Baldwin; Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.; New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham; Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams through her voter rights company Fair Battle.
None responded.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman, Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Brian Flood, Patrick Ward, Peter Doocy, Adam Shaw and Gregg Re contributed to this report.
