The Daily Caller published a story today in which Tara Reade pushes strongly for the opening of Joe Biden’s Senate archives in order to search for notes or complaints she claims she filed at the time.
2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden’s accuser Tara Reade says a complaint she filed with the Senate personnel office would prove that former Biden aides Dennis Toner and Ted Kaufman have lied in their denials of her story…
Complaints of this kind were handled by the Senate Office of Fair Employment Practices in 1993, which was replaced by the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR) following the passage of the Congressional Accountability Act in 1995.
Reade tried to locate the form she filled out in 2019 but says was told it would have been returned to Biden’s office. Now she believes it or something that proves she reported her problems to her superiors must be in Biden’s archive. And beyond whatever details those notes show, they would demonstrate that the former Biden staffers who have denied any knowledge of her complaint were lying.
“That would actually confirm that there was an issue that I went to my supervisors about. It would confirm the serving of the drinks,” she said, referring to her allegation that Biden asked for her to serve drinks at a fundraiser because he liked her legs.
She added that it would confirm that Biden’s “staff lied on the record and said that I never had meetings, when I had more than five meetings total – informal and formal, with the three of them at different times throughout my tenure.”
Ted Kaufman told the NY Times, “I did not know her. She did not come to me. If she had, I would have remembered her.” But Reade said she recalls Kaufman taking notes during a meeting he held with her. Reade believes those notes were added to her file and are probably still sitting there in the Biden archives.
In addition, Reade believes the timeline established by the records in the archive would show that shortly after she complained she was stripped of duties supervising interns and told to sit in a windowless office and look for another job. In other words, the documents could establish what she claims was retaliation for her complaints.
Speaking of Biden, Reade told the Daily Caller, “You ended my job after you assaulted me. You claim to be the champion of women’s rights, but your public persona does not match your personal actions.”
Since Biden has agreed to appear on Morning Joe tomorrow, I guess we’ll find out whether or not he agrees to open the files and let reporters find out what is in them. My final point on this is one that Reade doesn’t seem to consider. What if all those documents did exist but they were removed from the files long ago. How do we know, for instance, that Ted Kaufman didn’t take notes in that meeting with Reade and then put them in the circular file as soon as she walked out of his office?
That’s not to suggest we shouldn’t look, but I don’t think powerful people tend to leave information that could damage them hanging around in the files for decades. If they’re capable of lying now to protect Joe Biden, they were surely capable of covering up for him back then as well.
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