Tara Reade says she is not ready to respond to Biden denial

Tara Reade, the former Senate aide who alleged that former Vice President Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 while she was working on his staff, said Saturday that she isn’t ready to respond to Biden’s denial of the allegations.

“I’m digesting and processing everything he said,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “I will respond.”

Reade said she had planned to do a sit-down interview with Fox News on Sunday but canceled it due to threats she received aimed at her and her adult daughter. 

In 2019, Reade was one of several women who came forward and said Biden’s public touching made them uncomfortable. In late March, Reade alleged publicly that in 1993, the former vice president sexually assaulted her in a corridor on Capitol Hill. 

Since Reade came forward with her allegations, Biden’s campaign has vehemently denied them. However, Biden — the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee — didn’t directly respond to them until Friday.

“It is not true. I am saying unequivocally it never, never happened,” Biden told MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski on “Morning Joe.” 

Reade also told the Journal that she doesn’t remember if she used the words “sexual harassment” in the complaint she said she filed at the time with Senate personnel office against the then-Delaware senator.

“I know that I described what happened, that I felt uncomfortable, that I felt retaliated against,” she said. “I don’t know that I used the phrase ‘sexual harassment’—I don’t remember, and I haven’t seen the form.”

She told The Associated Press on Friday that she remembered including in the complaint that Biden wanted her to serve drinks at an event because “he liked my legs and thought I was pretty.”

The complaint Reade said she filed has yet to be found.

Reade claimed the complaint is in Biden’s Senate records housed at the University of Delaware. However, Biden has said he doesn’t have personnel files in his records, and the university has said it won’t release Biden’s records until he’s stepped away from public life.

Lynda LaCasse, a former neighbor of Reade’s, said earlier this week that she recalled Reade recounting the story of the alleged assault to her at the time. Reade’s brother Collin Moulton previously claimed that she told him Biden “had his hand under her clothes at some point.”