I'll listen to Tara Reade. But I can't square her charge with the Biden I know.

On many occasions, I have sat across from the man I saw on my screen. When I was advocating with state leaders just before starting the National Network to End Domestic Violence, I spent hours at Biden’s Senate office meeting with his staff, and occasionally with Biden himself, as the Violence Against Women Act was conceived, drafted and finally passed in 1994. The conversations continued on into my years as a member of Congress. I remember him then, as now, as a tireless, passionate advocate with a team behind him of amazing female lawyers and senior staff dedicated to our cause.

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So I have struggled, to put it mildly, to reconcile the person I have come to know with the accusation of assault brought forward in recent months by former staffer Tara Reade.

It is instinctive for me, as an advocate, to support the voice of any woman making an allegation as serious as this one. When Christine Blasey Ford stepped forward with her allegation against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh, I wanted to hear from her. She deserved to be heard. Then, once she finally got that chance, I weighed her testimony against Kavanaugh’s, and I believed her. That is what every accuser deserves — for her voice to be heard and for the evidence to be considered fairly.

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