The former Senate staffer who has accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her when she worked for him in 1993 says she filed a complaint with a Capitol Hill personnel office at the time.
The former Senate staffer who has accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her when she worked for him in 1993 says she filed a complaint with a Capitol Hill personnel office at the time.
The former staffer, Tara Reade, has said she doesn’t have a copy of the complaint and that it is not about the alleged sexual assault, but about uncomfortable interactions she says she experienced while working for Biden.
Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has denied Reade’s allegation, and has called on the Senate to locate and make the complaint public, if it exists.
„To the best of my understanding there has been no complaints made against me in any Senate career,“ Biden said in an interview with MSNBC. „This is an open book. There is nothing to hide.“
The Secretary of the Senate, after consulting with legal counsel, has said it cannot confirm or deny the existence of a complaint or make one public.
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Reade’s allegation has set off a host of questions about whether the complaint exists — and if it does, where it could be and who might have access to it. Here’s what we know about the alleged complaint:
What Reade has said about the complaint
Reade has told CNN that she filed a complaint with a personnel office on Capitol Hill in 1993 while she was working in Biden’s Senate office about interactions with Biden that allegedly made her feel uncomfortable. She said that the complaint addressed only the alleged sexual harassment, and not the alleged sexual assault.
Reade said she did not have a copy of the said complaint, and that she also was not sure what the name of the office where she filed it was.
What we know about Tara Reade’s allegation against Joe Biden
Additionally, Reade has said she verbally complained to three supervisors at the time about the alleged sexual harassment. All three have told CNN and other media outlets that they never received such a verbal complaint from Reade, and were furthermore never aware of any sexual harassment complaints from anybody against Biden in the years that they worked with him.
What one of Tara Reade’s friends said about the complaint
Reade has told CNN that the people she told about the alleged assault at the time included a close friend. CNN interviewed the friend, who asked to remain anonymous in order to protect her privacy.
According to the friend, Reade told her on multiple occasions while she was working in Biden’s Senate office about physical interactions with the then-senator that had made her feel uncomfortable. She said she encouraged Reade to raise the problem with her bosses.
