WASHINGTON – While former Vice President Joe Biden vehemently denied sexual assault allegations made against him, his comments Friday differed from what he said of accusations made against Brett Kavanaugh during the Supreme Court justice’s confirmation hearings in 2018.
Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is accused by a former Senate staffer, Tara Reade, of pushing her against a wall, groping her and digitally penetrating her without consent while she was bringing a gym bag to him in a Capitol Hill office building in 1993.
In the lengthy statement released before an MSNBC “Morning Joe” appearance Friday morning, Biden said he didn’t know “what is motivating” Reade to come forward now: “I don’t know why after 27 years all of a sudden this gets raised.”
A year ago, Reade spoke to media about claims Biden had inappropriately touched her while she worked for him in the Senate, as part of a group of eight women who said Biden had a habit of inappropriate physical displays of affection. At the time, Reade didn’t mention the assault.
When Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Kavanaugh for the first time of sexually assaulting her at a party in 1982 while they were in high school, Biden said in 2018 of the allegations: “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time.
“But nobody fails to understand that this is like jumping into a cauldron,” he continued then.
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“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski pressed Biden on this comment, asking repeatedly Friday: “Why is it real for Dr. Ford but not for Tara Reade?” and “Are women to be believed unless it pertains to you?”
Biden responded: “What I said during the Kavanaugh hearings was that she had the right to be heard. The fact that (Ford) came forward, the presumption would be she’s telling the truth unless it’s proved she wasn’t telling the truth or not proved, but unless it’s clear from the facts surrounding it, it’s not the truth.”
Biden said that “any woman, they should come forward, they should be heard” pertaining to sexual assault allegations, and that all allegations, including those against him by Reade, “should be investigated.”
In 2018, Biden called for an FBI investigation into Ford’s claims before the Senate voted on Kavanaugh’s confirmation. He said then, “What should happen is the woman should be given the benefit of the doubt and not be, you know, abused again by the system.”
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While maintaining that the assault alleged by Reid never happened, Biden openly invited reporters to investigate, pointing to “responsible news organizations” that “should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both big and small ways.”
However, he has not called for an FBI investigation into his allegations as he did for Kavanugh.
The FBI conducted a supplemental background investigation to review allegations against Kavanaugh and could not substantiate the claims against him, but also did not show the account to be false.
Biden additionally said the National Archives should search its records for a harassment complaint Reade said she filed after the alleged incident. After conducting research, the Washington Post couldn’t find a record of that complaint.
More:Read Joe Biden’s full statement on Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation
Though he says he is completely open to an investigation, the former vice president would not commit to allowing access to his University of Delaware Senate records collection, expressing concern some contents may be “taken out of context” while he runs for office. He also questioned who would be tasked with filtering through the records.
Reade has said she believes her complaint or separation letter may be stored there, but the university expects the curating process of his thousands of records to last until at least spring of 2021.
Also on Friday, Biden asked the Secretary of the Senate in a letter to “take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records of this Office, and once they have been located, to direct a search for the alleged complaint and to make public the results of this search.”
Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the highest court in the land was not just a chance for Republicans to shift the court to the right for what could be decades, but was also a test of how public officials responded to the raw emotions unleashed by the #MeToo movement amid accusations, and emotional testimony, from Ford.
Biden said Friday if the case is made in any sexual assault accusation, “it should be believed” but the truth ultimately matters.
Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, Nicholas Wu, Christal Hayes, Meredith Newman, Natalia Alamdari
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/01/bidens-kavanaugh-comments-resurface-after-sexual-assault-allegations/3067692001/
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