Why I'm skeptical about Reade's sexual assault claim against Biden: Ex-prosecutor

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

During 28 years as a state and federal prosecutor, I prosecuted a lot of sexual assault cases. The vast majority came early in my career, when I was a young attorney at a prosecutor’s office outside Detroit.

A year ago, Tara Reade accused former Vice President Joe Biden of touching her shoulder and neck in a way that made her uncomfortable, when she worked for him as a staff assistant in 1993. Then last month, Reade told an interviewer that Biden stuck his hand under her skirt and forcibly penetrated her with his fingers. Biden denies the allegation.

When women make allegations of sexual assault, my default response is to believe them. But as the news media have investigated Reade’s allegations, I’ve become increasingly skeptical. Here are some of the reasons why:

►Delayed reporting … twice. Reade waited 27 years to publicly report her allegation that Biden sexually assaulted her. I understand that victims of sexual assault often do not come forward immediately because recounting the most violent and degrading experience of their lives, to a bunch of strangers, is the proverbial insult to injury. That so many women were willing to wait in my dreary government office, as I ran to the restroom to pull myself together after listening to their stories, is a testament to their fortitude.

Even so, it is reasonable to consider a 27-year reporting delay when assessing the believability of any criminal allegation. More significant perhaps, is Reade’s decision to sit down with a newspaper last year and accuse Biden of touching her in a sexual way that made her uncomfortable — but neglect to mention her claim that he forcibly penetrated her with his fingers.

As a lawyer and victims’ rights advocate, Reade was better equipped than most to appreciate that dramatic changes in sexual assault allegations severely undercut an accuser’s credibility — especially when the change is from an uncomfortable shoulder touch to vaginal penetration.

-more-

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/29/joe-biden-sexual-assault-allegation-tara-reade-column/3046962001/

[Cha]

1. Thank you for this.. I'm going to read it now.

[elleng]

2. Thanks

[DrToast]

3. Good article. He covers everything, including the new stuff

[uponit7771]

4. What about the neighbor? We need to address that itself, she said Reade told her about Biden

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. You keep saying that

But that was years after the so called assault supposedly occurred. Assuming the neighbor is truthful.

That's also considered hearsay evidence.

[uponit7771]

9. I didn't hear the "years after" part in Hayes telling of the account. I wish he would've added that

... piece of info because it makes it sound like the neighbor was told at the time of the assault

[DrToast]

8. Did you read the article?

[uponit7771]

11. I did and grepped for neighbor the article used friends and the accounts to them were not ...

... contemporaneous

That's a shame, Hayes placed her statement to her neighbor at the same level as others who had made contemporaneous accounts.

I think Hayes should change that

[mzmolly]

12. The neighbor:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213357586#post66

[uponit7771]

13. THX !!! I wish Hayes had reported this & fact that the story to the neighbor wasn't contemporaneous

[mzmolly]

14. I do too. He appears to have an agenda,

sadly.

[oasis]

5. Reade playing for big bucks on Fox News and tabloid interviews.

Zero credibility.

[asiliveandbreathe]

7. For me it is all about the timing..and when I look at the

attacks that were made against Amy K, K Harris, E Warren, when they were making a move..etc etc etc..Reade was tweeting against Biden as a Sanders supporter.., she made mention of Putin in a tweet.."I love Russia with all my heart ... President Putin scares the power elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring, visionary leader." WTF...

Reade faced criticism over comments she made about Vladimir Putin in a Medium article that has since been deleted.

Intercept quoted that article as saying, “What if I told you that everything you learned about Russia was wrong? President Putin scares the power elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring, visionary leader. … To President Putin, I say keep your eyes to the beautiful future and maybe, just maybe America will come to see Russia as I do, with eyes of love. To all my Russian friends, happy holiday and Happy New Year.” WTF..

[Cha]

18. ►Suspect timing.

►Suspect timing. For 27 years, Reade did not publicly accuse Biden of sexually assaulting her. But then Biden's string of March primary victories threw Sanders off his seemingly unstoppable path to the Democratic nomination. On March 25, as Sanders was pondering his political future, Reade finally went public with her claim. The confluence of Reade’s support of Sanders, distaste for the traditional American democracy epitomized by Biden, and the timing of her allegation should give pause to even the most strident Biden critics.

[asiliveandbreathe]

19. Exactly..Cha..Aloha

[Cha]

20. Aloha, asiliveandbreathe..

[mzmolly]

10. We cross posted.

Pardon me.

This is well documented and well said!

Thanks for sharing!

[spanone]

15. K&R

[Cha]

16. People who contradict Reade's claim..

People who contradict Reade’s claim. After the alleged assault, Reade said she complained about Biden's harassment to Marianne Baker, Biden’s executive assistant, as well as to top aides Dennis Toner and Ted Kaufman. All three Biden staffers recently told The New York Times that she made no complaint to them.

And they did not offer the standard, noncommittal “I don’t remember any such complaint.” The denials were firm. “She did not come to me. If she had, I would have remembered her,” Kaufman said. Toner made a similar statement. And from Baker: “I never once witnessed, or heard of, or received, any reports of inappropriate conduct (by Biden), period." Baker said such a complaint, had Reade made it, "would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional, and as a manager.”

The lie about losing her job.

Reade told The Union that Biden wanted her to serve drinks at an event. After she refused, "she felt pushed out and left Biden's employ," the newspaper said last April. But Reade claimed this month in her Times interview that after she filed a sexual harassment complaint with the Senate personnel office, she faced retaliation and was fired by Biden’s chief of staff.
Leaving a job after refusing to serve drinks at a Biden fundraiser is vastly different than being fired as retaliation for filing a sexual harassment complaint with the Senate. The disparity raises questions about Reade’s credibility and account of events.

►Compliments for Biden. In the 1990s, Biden worked to pass the Violence Against Women Act. In 2017, on multiple occasions, Reade retweeted or “liked” praise for Biden and his work combating sexual assault. In the same year, Reade tweeted other compliments of Biden, including: “My old boss speaks truth. Listen.” It is bizarre that Reade would publicly laud Biden for combating the very thing she would later accuse him of doing to her.

Link to tweet

[ashredux]

17. This is total BS. Biden isn't a "pussy grabber "

Trump is however...odd how this just now pops up

[emmaverybo]

21. Just to read her purple propagandist Putin loving tweets is to discount her story. And then she

lied about that, claiming to have been writing a novel about Russia and not to care a fig about Putin. Stole money from a non-profit according to her boss there. Various lies and contradictions and the tic toc tweet impeach her as politically motivated.

They will keep this coming though. It’s simple swift boating.

I knew this would be the deal as soon as the success of the Linda Flores complaints and given
Biden’s advocacy for sex abuse victims.

More on Reade:

https://link.medium.com/TJ2miPi155

[kimbutgar]

22. She needs to take a lie detector test

[peggysue2]

23. This woman has no credibility

None. This is just another ratf*cking mission conjured by the GOP while the left wildly cheers the efforts on. And so much fun to weaponize the MeToo movement, countering any objection with a single utterance:

Kavanaugh!

We've seen this picture show before. Its most recent title was Al Franken. Earlier iterations were John Kerry's swift boat moment and Hillary's Benghazi/email fiasco. We know how those flicks turned out.

Time to throw rotten tomatoes at the screenwriters. Time to throw the bums and their vindictive Mad King out with the garbage.

Perfect ending.

[DIVINEprividence]

24. Reade has praised Biden a bunch of times

She has praised Biden’s character, honesty and his work on behalf of women he has been dedicated to his entire career. So she not only doesn’t say anything for 27 years but publicly praised a man multiple times she claims now assaulted her. It is ridiculous.

[no_hypocrisy]

25. I'm a defense attorney and have a equatable narrative.

Last year, I defended a nurse's aide in a long-term care facility who had been accused by a 77 year old woman in a wheelchair of 15 instances of mental, emotional, and physical abuse. (I was trying to prevent the permanent revocation of my client's license.)

On its face, it didn't look good at all. The accuser had details and specifics for the who/what/when/where/how. She was white and my client was a Haitian immigrant/American citizen.

The accuser waited two weeks to report the series of abuse that allegedly took place for two weeks. No witnesses except for her son, whom I got to admit on the stand that "nothing happened." All the reports were just that, reports without any witnesses. As to the alleged injury on her right ankle, under oath, the accuser couldn't remember where her injury was and drew a circle on the left leg under the knee. The rest of the accusations fell flat upon analysis.

My point: The accuser got the benefit of the doubt and the default belief that a 77 year old woman in a wheelchair, vulnerable, etc. would lie about 15 instances of abuses. I spent 1-1/2 years to clear up the controversy. I proved that the accuser wanted to get her aide fired instead of asking for a replacement.

I agree with the original post that all accusations have to be taken seriously but that doesn't mean that these accusations are presumptive facts. The Me-Too Movement doesn't mean that all women making accusations are stating facts. They are merely accusations/allegations until proven true and are facts.

[DeterDeter]

26. Good article but

The line "Reade’s decision to sit down with a newspaper last year and accuse Biden of touching her in a sexual way that made her uncomfortable" is still wrong....she had said that she did NOT consider the shoulder touching to be sexual last year.
And before her revised story came out, her she went back and changed those parts of the article on her blog (you can tell the differences from the original existing Union article) that stated "this is not a story about sexual misconduct" to "this is not ONLY a story about sexual misconduct" It will be interesting if anyone from the Union newspaper will come forward, since she claims that they "shut her down" (highly highly unlikely).