Likewise, what does “under oath” even mean? You can get in legal trouble for committing perjury in court or before Congress but it’s not as though you can swear someone in at a coffee shop or with a reporter and it means anything.
Her polygraph statement was trash. She says she refuses because she’s not the one guilty. Well, Biden is innocent until proven guilty. You’re making the accusations so either be willing to take the polygraph to help add credence or just say that you’re not willing. “I will, but only if he will too!” is nothing more than a dodge.
Interesting to me how many people say no way he did something like this. How many people thought Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Bill Cosby,etc were creeps ? You can be Mr. straight arrow in public and abusing women in private.
I’m not saying there is “no way he did something like this”. I’m saying that looking at the totality of the evidence, it is considerably more likely to me than not that he did not do something like this. If there is more evidence, I’m willing to hear it.
We’re in a shitty situation yet again, Biden might or might not be innocent. But he is the Dem candidate and not likely to step down as such. He’s clearly a better choice than Trump, so I will be voting for him not knowing if I’m electing a guilty man. We know how guilty Trump & his cronies are and that is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
Yay! :smack: I mean Biden has the nomination without being close to the majority of Democratic voters first choice. He was the compromise candidate.
Can’t demand Biden steps down without some sort of proof. Can’t just claim Tara Reade is lying despite the timing. I know I’ve been schooled on that. I would love to find out she is lying that she was put up to this, but cannot assume it.
Back to the main problem, Trump has to go, to get him gone we need to vote for Biden anyway.
The main difference is there’s no promise of a career boost. She’s already got the ‘worked for US Senate’ line on her resume. There’s no real step up, that’s the type of job that gets filled by young people for a year or two and then they move on.
Yeah, that’s the part I find to be a stretch. I don’t doubt that Biden groped her and made her feel dispirited about working on Capitol Hill ever again, and I accept that this effectively ruined her career and had a devastating impact on her life. All of that seems believable, and it would be enough of a story on its own.
But like you, I find it a stretch to believe that he just impulsively pinned her against the wall and essentially physically attacked her and actually stuck his fingers up her skirt, through her panties, and into her crotch. I just don’t buy it. I’d be more inclined to buy it if she hadn’t changed her story and I’d absolutely buy it if more came forward with credible reports of similar behavior. He could have tried, but I don’t think he pulled it off.
I’m still voting for Biden - not because I’m really voting for Biden but because I’m voting for his policies and because he’s probably a 5 or a 6 on the creepy scale whereas his opponent is an 8 or a 9.
I actually doubt anything happened. I think she’s so mentally messed up she doesn’t know fact from fiction. Her entire adult life has consisted of scams and bizarre stories.
So she had a chance to do an interview with Chris Wallace, but Wallace is known for being a pretty tough interviewer who asks hard questions, and doesn’t toe the party line. Reade cancelled that interview.
Instead she does a sensational interview with Megyn Kelly, who’s basically limited to freelancing. It’s a case of Kelly needing an interview to make herself newsworthy again, and Reade needs someone to peddle a conspiracy theory.
I find it interesting that she waits until now to demand that Biden drops out of the race. More interesting that she keeps asking him to drop out, as though that’s the more important outcome rather than justice or an apology.
I accept that there’s at least some contemporaneous corroborating evidence that something happened during her brief tenure in Biden’s office. There’s also evidence that Biden has perhaps been a little too grabby. I go as far as the evidence takes me, which is why I believe that something - don’t know what - happened between Biden and Reade, just not to the degree that she’s describing, and I do find her timing to be rather suspicious.
Biden should be judged according to the standards he has advocated for others.
So a university official should interview both Reade and Biden, someone who has been trained in dealing with trauma victims. That means understanding that inconsistent, changing stories are not evidence of falsehood and that trauma victims also can make up and exaggerate details without affecting their credibility. The investigation should not presume innocence and Biden should not have a lawyer present during his interview. If he refuses to answer any question that should be held against him. If the investigator thinks it more likely than not that an assault was committed Biden should be forced to drop out without appeal.
Biden has recently recommitted to this standard for others so he should have no problem applying it to himself.
I suspect, and it’s just me, that she experienced some sort of harassment in the early 90s that was “no big deal” back then such as her claim that she was asked to serve drinks at a party or overheard that Biden thought she was pretty. I suspect that she was sincerely bothered by it and complained. She didn’t get any traction on it and that was the basis of her leaving the job and her mother’s call (no mention of assault, just “had issues”) and the intake form that doesn’t mention harassment or assault, just feeling “uncomfortable” and the court document saying she experienced harassment in Biden’s office. I suspect that, when no one especially cared, she upped the ante with the exaggerated assault story which is why none of the documents are about assault, his vetting didn’t turn up any allegations of assault, there was no Congressional follow-up while assault was a hot topic, no one else has claimed assault and the only “evidence” comes from her telling people about it months or years after it supposedly occurred.
Obviously I can’t prove this is the case but it seems to fit the available facts.
Your interest in this might be convincing if you’d expressed the slightest bit of interest in thoroughly investigating the multiple sexual assault and rape allegations against Trump.
The drinks thing makes sense. A lot of idealistic young people show up for those sort of staff jobs thinking they’ll be writing position papers and crafting legislation when they’re actually doing grunt work. No one wants to go to the Hill to spend an hour dealing with a crazy constituent who thinks there’s black helicopters watching them.
If being asked to serve drinks at a party was a pattern of only making female staff do that then it’s objectionable sex discrimination. But anecdotally, my brother, as a mid-level manager in a library system, was once voluntold to be a server at a fancy dress ball for city bigwigs, so it’s not always specifically women who experience this.
I, myself, was once voluntold to be a question+answer/mic usher at a corporate meeting, which was way out of my job description, but didn’t seem very demeaning to me so I didn’t resent it. Certainly a lot more tolerable than the embarrassing antics that cheesy DJs instigate at weddings.
Her story in 2019 was that she was asked to serve drinks and Biden put his fingers on her neck or shoulders and she was uncomfortable with that. She says she complained and no one acted and she felt pushed out of the office. I find that plausible; everyone knows Biden is/was overly touchy and I doubt anyone would be shocked to learn the drinks story. That 2019 story would make a logical basis for her complaint and mother’s phone call, etc.
I’m not saying the drinks thing or people shrugging it off is cool but, if the real story is “I was asked by his office to serve drinks in 1993 and didn’t and got shut out” then let’s be discussing if that’s discrediting for being president instead of “I was physically attacked and assaulted”.
I think that her claims should be taken seriously and investigated. Unfortunately, I will still vote for Biden in the general, regardless of the outcome, as Trump and the GOP are the greatest threat this nation has ever faced.
Let’s flip this around and say that Biden should be judged and held to account the same way Republicans judge and hold their own candidates hold their candidates to account.
I’m glad that there’s more investigative reporting focusing on the accuser and not just the accused. I don’t believe in smearing people who come forward with legit complaints, but if this is true, then it sheds light on her accusations.
Since you brought it up, there are also allegations of her being $400K in debt and filing for bankruptcy in 2012, referring to case no. 12–57565 Northern District of California.
At some point between 2012 & 2014, she started a non-profit pet food pantry. The IRS pulled her organization’s 501(c)(3) status at some point after 2015; there are allegations that she wasn’t filing the necessary financial disclosures to maintain the non-profit status.