The secretary of the U.S. Senate said Monday morning it “has no discretion” to release the details of any alleged complaint against Joe Biden while he was a senator.
Biden, the former vice president who is now the Democratic Party’s presumptive White House nominee, has requested information pertaining to an allegation of sexual assault from Tara Reade.
Reade alleges Biden assaulted her in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building in the 1990s. Biden was calling on the Senate secretary to release any details of the complaint, which the secretary said it cannot do.
On Friday, Biden addressed the controversy directly for the first time in an interview on MSNBC.
“I’m saying unequivocally, it never, never happened,” said Biden, adding he will ask the National Archives to determine whether there is any record of such a complaint being filed. But Biden said repeatedly that he doesn’t believe such a record exists.
“The former staffer has said she filed a complaint back in 1993,” Biden said. “But she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files.
“There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be, the National Archives. The National Archives is where the records are kept.”
Republicans worried about President Donald Trump’s increasingly precarious political standing are seizing on the allegation to portray Democrats as hypocrites who only defend women who allege wrongdoing against conservatives. They are digging in despite the fact that it could renew attention on the multiple sexual assault allegations lodged against Trump.
Democrats, meanwhile, are in an awkward position of vigorously validating women who come forward with their stories while defending the man who will be their standard-bearer in what many in the party consider the most important election of their lifetimes.
The November contest between Biden and Trump will be the first presidential race of the #MeToo era, which has led numerous women to come forward with allegations of sexual assault. Trump has been accused of assault and unwanted touching by numerous women, allegations he denies.
Women are a core constituency for Democrats, and Biden has a mixed history. While he wrote the Violence Against Women Act as a senator, he also came under heavy criticism for his handling of Anita Hill’s Senate testimony in the 1990s. Just before he launched his 2020 campaign, several women accused him of unwanted touching, behavior for which he apologized.
Biden has pledged to pick a woman as a running mate, and the allegation has left those thought to be in contention in a tough spot.
Credit: AJC
Some Democratic donors and fundraisers say the issue has not come up in calls with party financiers. Others worry that it could be used against Biden, much as Hillary Clinton’s private email server and the activities of the Clinton Foundation were wielded against her by Trump.
Some, most notably women, say they are paying close attention to the allegations, which gave them pause.
The GOP argues Democrats aren’t being consistent, pointing to aggressive questioning and coverage of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when he faced an allegation of sexual assault.
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