Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden said Friday that he wishes to make public the sexual harassment complaint filed by Tara Reade, the woman who says he sexually assaulted her decades ago when she worked for him in the Senate.
Biden wrote to Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams requesting “assistance in determining whether 27 years ago a staff member in my United States Senate office filed a complaint alleging sexual harassment.”
“I request that you take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records of this Office, and once they have been located, to direct a search for the alleged complaint and to make public the results of this search,” the former vice president wrote.
“I would ask that the public release include not only a complaint if one exists, but any and all other documents in the records that relate to the allegation,” Biden’s letter read.
New: Joe Biden writes a letter asking the Secretary of the Senate to “take or direct whatever steps are necessary” to locate the complaint by @ReadeAlexandra, and to publicly release it along with “any and all other documents in the records that relate to the allegation.” pic.twitter.com/tQcEd1SWI8
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 1, 2020
Biden’s letter added that the National Archives had informed him that the record, if it exists, would have remained with the Senate. He had originally said he believed such a record would be housed in the National Archives.
Reade went public with graphic details of her claim on March 25. She alleges that in 1993 when she was a staff assistant working for Biden, she was told by a top staffer to bring the Delaware senator a duffel bag in a Senate building. When she met with him he pinned her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers while forcibly kissing her.
In early April of last year, before he announced his run for the Democratic nomination, Reade alleged along with several other women that Biden had touched her inappropriately. She says she filed a complaint with a congressional personnel office that mentions sexual harassment she was subjected to by Biden but not the alleged assault.
Facing mounting pressure from both sides of the aisle to address the allegation directly, Biden appeared on MSNBC on Friday morning and denied the claims.
“No, it is not true,” Biden said. “I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened.”