Tara Reade

Tara Reade is a former intern for Leon Panetta and Senate aide for Senator and later Vice President Joseph R. Biden.

Early attempts to tell the story

In April 2019 when Joe Biden declared his candidacy for the Democrat nomination in the 2020 presidential election, Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores related a story of Biden's bizarre conduct while stumping for her in 2014 when she ran for Lt. Governor. The two were lined up off stage for introductions at a union hall. In Flores own words:

As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. "Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?" I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, tragame tierra, it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me...He was there to promote me as the right person for the lieutenant governor job. Instead he made feel uneasy, gross, and confused. The Vice President had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners - and I felt powerless to do anything about it....it was demeaning and disrespectful. .

The event changed forever how Flores saw the alleged fighter for women's rights. No less than 7 other women came forward with similar instances over the years, among them, Tara Reade.

Megan McCain, Alyssa Milano, Susan Rice, and the usual crowd of hypocrites rushed to Biden's defense.

Tara Reade was one of seven other women to share their own stories about Biden. Reade told reporters about the way Biden would put his hands on her shoulders and run his fingers up and down her neck. She considered talking about the rest of her story but didn't because her claims of sexual harassment got her doxed and smeared as a Russian agent in April 2019.

The screening organization

She was trying to tell her story since it happened in 1993. It's a story about sexual assault, digital penetration which is rape, retaliation, and silencing.

Then in January 2020 Reade tried to come forward again. This time she contacted Times Up Now, the sexual harassment organization. Ryan Grim at The Intercept reported the organization said they couldn't help her because Joe Biden was a candidate for federal office and supporting a case against him could jeopardize their nonprofit status. They also pointed out that the public relations firm that works on behalf of the Times Up Now Legal Defense Fund is SKD Knickerbocker, and SKDKnickerbocker managing director is Obama's former Communication's director, the notorious Maoist Anita Dunn. Dunn is the top adviser to Joe Biden.

Rape

Tara's brother and her good friend recall being told about the assault by Tara at the time it happened in 1993. Tara reached out to countless people to try to tell her story and nobody, not even the organization that was made to support women like her would listen to her. This was an actual physical assault. Tara Reade was asked to take a duffel bag to Joe Biden so her boss in the office called her and say, "Hey you need to bring this to Joe Biden right away. Hurry." So she brought it to him at a gym. Reade said,

Tara Reade: He was at first talking to someone. I could see him at a distance and then they went away. And then we were in like the side area, and he just said, "Hey c'mere Tara," and then I handed him the thing. And he greeted me. He remembered my name and then it we were alone. And it was the strangest thing. There was no like exchange. Really. He just had me up against the wall. And I was wearing like a skirt, and you know, business skirt. But I wasn't wearing stockings. It was kind of a hot day that day and I was wearing heels. And I remember my legs had been hurting from the marble, you know, of the Capitol, like walking.

And I remember that kind of stuff. I remember like I was wearing a blouse, and he just had me up against the wall. And the wall was cold. And I remember it happened all at once. The gym bag, I don't know where, when I handed it to him, was gone. And then his hands were on me and underneath my clothes. And yeah, and then he went um, he went down my skirt, but then up inside it. And he penetrated me with his finger. He was kissing me at the same time, and he was saying something to me. He said several things and I can't remember everything. He said, I remember a couple of things, I remember him saying first, as he was doing it "Do you want to go somewhere else?" and then him saying to me when I pulled away, he got finished doing what he was doing, and I pulled back. And he said "Come on man, I heard you liked me." It's that phrase stayed with me because I kept thinking what I might have said. And I can't remember exactly if he said, "I thought" or "I heard", but it's like he implied that I had done this.
I don't know, for me it was like everything shattered in that moment. Because I knew, like we were alone. It was over, right? He wasn't trying to do anything more. But I looked up to him. He was like my father's age. He was this champion of women's rights in my eyes, and I couldn't believe it was happening. It seems surreal. And I just I knew I just felt sick, because when he pulled back, he looked annoyed. And he said something else to me that I don't want to say. And then he said - I must have looked shocked and he grabbed me by the shoulders. I don't know how I looked, but I must have looked something because he grabbed me by the shoulders and he said, "You're okay. You're fine. You're okay. You're fine." And then he walked away and he went on with his day.
And what I remember next is being in the Russell Building, like where the big windows are and the stairs by myself. And my body - I was shaking everywhere because - and it was cold. All of a sudden, I was, I don't know, I felt like I was shaking just everywhere and I was trying to grasp what just happened. and what I should do, or what I should say. But I knew it was bad because he was so angry. Like when he left. Like I could feel, you know, how when you know someone's angry. They don't necessarily say anything. He smiles when he's angry and you can just feel it emanating from him.
Interviewer: Do you want to share that thing that you said you don't like, you said like I don't want to say what he said that thing he said to you?
Tara Reade: Um yeah. I can, I guess I could. I mean....
Interviewer: You you don't have to.
Tara Reade: That's okay. It's just um, it's almost like giving a weapon to them.
Interviewer:' 'How so?
Tara Reade: Well it's like I don't want them to know how much it hurt. I don't you know. don't want him to know.
Interviewer: That you remembered it?
Tara Reade: Yeah. Just... just I don't know um....but yeah, I can say it, um yeah.
There was something he said that I didn't want to say. And I didn't want to say it because it's the thing that stays in my head over and over. Like, um, it's the thing that kind of stayed with me over the years. But he said, when he got me against the wall after I pulled away. And he said, "Hey, I heard you liked me". I knew he was angry right after he took his finger, he just like pointed at me and he said. "You're nothing to me". And he just looked at me, he goes "You're nothing. Nothing." And then I must have reacted and I think he only said it twice. I just heard the word "nothing" and, and I must have reacted, because that's when he took me by the shoulders and he said "You're okay. You're fine. You're okay."

But then afterwards, like it kept replaying in my head there, like last April [2019] when all that stuff came out. I got really, really sad about it. And the thing that I remember most, almost more than the assault itself was, just being told that I was nothing. And he was right. That's how people treated me. And I have no platform. So people want to know why women don't come forward, that's a good example.