Calls grow for Joe Biden to address former staffer's assault allegation
Joe Biden faced growing calls from Democrats on Tuesday to address claims made by Tara Reade, a former aide in his Senate office who has accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in the early 1990s.
The pressure grew after Business Insider reported that two women had corroborated key elements of the accusations against Biden. According to the story, one woman said Reade had told her decades ago that Biden assaulted her, and another woman backed up elements of Reade's prior statement that Biden had harassed her when she worked for him.
Biden has not addressed the accusations and has not been asked about them in any of the several television interviews he has done since Reade's accusations gained significant public attention.
Biden has declined a request for an interview. He also has declined to release his Senate papers, which are being held at the University of Delaware and could shed light on personnel issues. His campaign has forcefully denied Reade's claims.
The escalating accounts have squeezed Democrats between two competing goals: to support all women accusing powerful men of misconduct and to defend Biden, the party's presumptive presidential nominee, from what they say are unfounded accusations.
Some Democrats on Tuesday said his campaign's denials were insufficient given the explosiveness of the assault accusation and the uncertainties about events dating back more than two decades.
"I don't want to minimize what happened to her. I've spent too many years doing this work to do that," said Gilda Cobb-Hunter, president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and a veteran South Carolina Democrat who plans to support Biden. "I think he needs to say something forceful so that we can try to put it behind us."
She said the past few days have convinced her that there is more credibility to Reade's claims, and she pointed to other revelations about public officials to warn about being too certain.
"I think people ought to be careful being too declarative about what did or did not happen if they were not there," she said. "The campaign needs to be careful about being definitive in saying it didn't happen."
The national organizing director for Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign said the revelations were disqualifying.
"There is simply no moral justification for Biden to continue as the presumptive nominee," Claire Sandberg wrote on Twitter. "Out of respect for survivors and for the good of the country, he should withdraw from the race."
Biden's supporters, meantime, were more muted on Tuesday, with most refusing to comment when asked about the claims and signaling with their silence the fraught nature of the accusations. The Washington Post reached out to numerous Biden supporters, top endorsers and potential running mates. Many chose neither to defend him nor to call on him to further explain.
One major exception was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who issued a strong defense of Biden. Gillibrand was the first senator to call for Sen. Al Franken to resign two years ago after the Minnesota Democrat was accused of touching and kissing several women without their permission. He strongly denied the allegations.
"Vice President Biden has vehemently denied these allegations, and I support Vice President Biden," Gillibrand said, apparently referring to his campaign's denial.
A number of prominent women whom Biden has said he would consider as a running mate declined to comment Tuesday, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kamala Harris of California. Aides to Klobuchar and Harris pointed to prior comments in which they said they respect Reade's right to tell her story but also defended Biden as a strong advocate for women's rights.
One of the few potential running mates to respond was former Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams.
"I believe women deserve to be heard, and I believe that has happened here," Abrams said in a statement. "The allegations have been heard and looked into, and for too many women, often, that is not the case."
She referred to newspaper articles about Reade's accusations and said none of them "suggests anything other than what I already know about Joe Biden: That he will make women proud as the next President of the United States."
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., asked about the allegations in a Tuesday interview, said, "I have no idea what anybody else experienced with Joe Biden" but reiterated that the reasons he endorsed Biden have not changed.
"I know Joe. We know Joe. But most importantly, Joe knows us," he said. "I didn't get there without long, extensive background with Joe Biden, without a long experience with Joe Biden. My late wife to whom I was married for 58 years loved Joe Biden. And more importantly, she respected Joe Biden."
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