Untenable.
A darned good question, as I wrote earlier, and not just in the context of Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden. Washington Post reporter and columnist Karen Tumulty wrote within minutes of Biden’s Morning Joe interview that his explanation for keeping his archives off-limits didn’t “adequately address the “why”” of his refusal, specifically to resolve this standoff. Even if the records don’t contain Reade’s formal complaint, Tumulty argues, they may contain other information pertinent to her allegation:
But that makes one thing all the more perplexing: the way Biden dodged co-host Mika Brzezinski’s repeated questions about the records of his Senate years that are under seal at the University of Delaware. Why, she asked him again and again, does he not open those archives to scrutiny?
Biden didn’t adequately address the “why.” He simply kept repeating that those files do not contain personnel records. We are expected to take his word for that. There is a good chance that Biden is telling the truth. But even if he is, those boxes of material might hold many other items that could be relevant: memos from staff members that mention Reade or her allegation, schedules that convey a sense of how much contact he had with Reade. The materials might include documents that speak to the general culture in the office. There might be… Well, we just don’t know what might be there, because Biden won’t let anyone see them.
Well, it’s not that he won’t let “anyone” see them. Business Insider reported last night that Biden’s campaign accessed the records and did a significant search through them, perhaps as recently as a few weeks ago. That’s behind a paywall, but Fox News picked up the report this morning:
Joe’s Biden’s campaign dispatched operatives to the University of Delaware’s library in the past year to rifle through his secretive Senate records there, Business Insider reported Thursday — raising the possibility they accessed documents related to Tara Reade’s accusation that he sexually assaulted her when she worked for him in 1993.…
Biden campaign officials “rifled through” the documents on “at least one occasion,” Business Insider reported, citing a statement from University spokeswoman Andrea Boyle Tippett.
