• Exclusive: 1996 court document confirms Tara Reade told of harassment i

    From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to All on Thu May 7 21:05:04 2020
    XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.media
    XPost: alt.politics.usa

    A court document from 1996 shows former Senate staffer Tara Reade told
    her ex-husband she was sexually harassed while working for Joe Biden in
    1993.

    The declaration — exclusively obtained by The Tribune in San Luis
    Obispo, California — does not say Biden committed the harassment nor
    does it mention Reade’s more recent allegations of sexual assault.

    Reade’s then-husband Theodore Dronen wrote the court declaration.
    Dronen at the time was contesting a restraining order Reade filed
    against him days after he filed for divorce, Superior Court records
    show.

    In it, he writes Reade told him about “a problem she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in U.S. Senator Joe Biden’s office.”

    It appears to be the only written record that has surfaced from the
    time that substantiates Reade shared her account in the years following
    the alleged incident, though a former neighbor came forward last week
    about similar conversations she said she had with Reade in 1995.

    The news came as Reade was preparing for the release of her first on-
    camera interview since the former vice president and presumptive
    Democratic nominee for president personally denied the allegations May
    1 on MSNBC. Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly tweeted about the
    interview Thursday morning, calling it “a riveting exchange.” She did
    not indicate when it would be published.

    In the filing dated March 25, 1996, Dronen testified that he met Reade
    in the spring of 1993 while the two worked for separate members of
    Congress in Washington, D.C.

    Dronen wrote that Reade told him she “eventually struck a deal with the
    chief of staff of the Senator’s office and left her position.”

    “It was obvious that this event had a very traumatic effect on (Reade),
    and that she is still sensitive and effected (sic) by it today,” Dronen
    wrote.

    Dronen filed the record in response to a similar declaration written by
    Reade in support of her restraining order request, in which Reade
    described incidents of abuse throughout her life. In interviews with
    The Tribune and other media, Reade has identified herself as a domestic violence survivor and victim’s advocate.

    Though the ex-husband disputed many statements Reade made in her
    declaration, he wrote at the time that the alleged incident in Biden’s
    office and others described in the document “color (Reade’s) perception
    and judgment” of her civil case.

    Reade has recently said that in 1993, Biden pushed her up against a
    wall in a semi-private hallway, reached under her skirt, and penetrated
    her with his fingers.

    Her account has changed over time. In 2019 she was one of eight women
    to accuse Biden of unwanted touching, but not sexual assault.

    RESPONSE TO THE COURT DOCUMENT
    Asked for comment Thursday, the national press secretary for Biden’s presidential campaign, T.J. Ducklo, said the campaign is not commenting
    on the latest development at this time.

    However, the campaign did provide a comment from Ted Kaufman, who was
    Biden’s chief of staff at the time.

    “I have consistently said what is the truth here — that she never came
    to me,” Kaufman said. “I do not remember her, and had she come to me in
    any of these circumstances, I would remember her. But I do not, because
    she did not.”

    https://youtu.be/seu_C08yAAM

    Reade’s New York-based attorney, Douglas Wigdor, also provided a
    statement to The Tribune on Thursday:

    “The affidavit from Ms. Reade’s ex-husband is further support that Ms.
    Reade was sexually assaulted and sexually harassed by then Senator Joe
    Biden,” Wigdor wrote in an email. “Ms. Reade’s account of what happened
    will shortly be aired in an interview by Megyn Kelly and I am confident
    that the American public will see her genuine veracity.”

    Reade, 56, told The Tribune last week that she does not plan to vote in
    the upcoming presidential election in November. She has called for
    Biden to “stand up” and “step down” from the presidential race, but
    also said she does not support U.S. President Donald Trump.

    “I would say stand up and take full account for what you’ve done and
    for your past treatment of women,” Reade told The Tribune in a phone
    interview on May 1, when asked what she would like to say to her former
    boss. “He holds himself up as a champion of women, but the fact remains
    that his personal life did not reflect his public life.”

    “I want him to address it, and admit it, and modify his behavior, and
    step down,” she added.

    “The fact that we have two men running for the highest office in the
    land, both with a history of misogyny and sexual misconduct, says more
    about our culture than anything,” she said.

    Dronen, who still lives in San Luis Obispo County, confirmed he wrote
    the declaration.

    “Tara and I ended our relationship over two decades ago under difficult circumstances,” Dronen said in an email to The Tribune on Thursday. “I
    am not interested in reliving that chapter of my life. I wish Tara
    well, and I have nothing further to say.”

    READ SHARED ALLEGATIONS WITH HER MOTHER AND A FRIEND
    Reade, who now lives in Northern California, lived in Morro Bay off and
    on in the 1990s. At the time of her divorce, she worked for then-state
    Sen. Jack O’Connell, who represented San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara
    counties on California’s Central Coast.

    In interviews with several national newspapers and politics podcaster
    Katie Halper, who broke the story of the assault allegations on March
    25, Reade said that in the spring or summer of 1993, she was told to
    meet Biden inside a somewhat private corridor to deliver a duffel bag.

    There, Reade said, Biden pushed her up against a wall, reached under
    her skirt, and penetrated her with his fingers. When she resisted his
    advances, Reade said, Biden became annoyed and said, “Aw, man. I heard
    you liked me.”

    Biden then pointed a finger at her and said, “You’re nothing to me,”
    Reade alleges. After that, she said, he shook her by the shoulders and
    said, “You’re OK, you’re fine,” before walking away, according to
    several media reports.

    Reade declined to discuss specifics of the alleged assault with The
    Tribune, referring a reporter to her account published on Harper’s
    podcast and by Business Insider.

    The New York Times in April interviewed dozens of former Senate
    staffers, a few of whom worked in Biden’s office at the same time as
    Reade. They told the publication they do not recall talk of any such
    incident. The newspaper’s investigative team was unable to verify
    Reade’s claims.

    The story gained momentum on April 24, when The Intercept uncovered and published a 58-second video clip of a woman from San Luis Obispo County
    — Reade identified the caller as her mother, who died in 2016 — calling
    in to an August 1993 segment on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

    “I wonder what a staffer would do besides go to the press in
    Washington,” the caller says in the segment, which was reportedly
    titled, “Washington: The Cruelest City on Earth?” and examined an
    allegedly toxic work environment in the nation’s capital.

    “My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent
    senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the
    only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not
    to do it out of respect for him,” she says.

    King responds in the video: “In other words, she had a story to tell,
    but out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?

    “That’s true,” the caller replies.

    King’s panel does not offer the caller advice in the 58-second clip
    released by The Intercept.

    On April 27, Business Insider published an article featuring Lynda
    LaCasse, a former neighbor of Reade’s from Morro Bay who confirmed that
    Reade told her about the alleged assault in the mid-1990s.

    The San Luis Obispo Tribune has been unable to reach LaCasse for
    comment.

    LaCasse, who is reportedly a retired former medical staff coordinator
    and emergency room clerk, lived next door to Reade in 1995 and 1996 in
    an apartment complex in Morro Bay, Business Insider reported.

    “I remember her saying, here was this person that she was working for
    and she idolized him,” LaCasse told The Insider. “She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do.”

    LaCasse said that her friend was “devastated” by the incident, and she remembered urging her to report it to police.

    READE SAYS SHE FILED A COMPLAINT WITH SENATE
    Reade filed a report with the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police
    Department in April, but a Police Department spokesperson told Business
    Insider that an investigation into the complaint was inactive.

    There is currently no statute of limitations on sexual misconduct in
    the nation’s capital, after the passage of a new law that went into
    effect May 3.

    She also claims to have filed a complaint to the Senate following the
    alleged assault, but told the Associated Press on May 1 that she did
    not use the phrase “sexual harassment” in the complaint. However, she
    said she believed that was the behavior she was describing.

    “I talked about sexual harassment, retaliation. The main word I used —
    and I know I didn’t use sexual harassment — I used ‘uncomfortable,’”
    she told the AP.

    In his appearance on MSNBC earlier that day, Biden said he called for
    the National Archives to release any records of Reade’s complaint. The
    agency said it didn’t have any.

    Biden then sent a letter to the secretary of the Senate to “request
    your assistance in determining whether 27 years ago a staff member in
    my United States Senate office filed a complaint alleging sexual
    harassment,” the letter reads.

    But the Senate secretary rejected the request, saying that the Senate’s
    legal counsel advised that the secretary has “no discretion to disclose
    any such information.”

    On MSNBC, Biden vehemently denied Reade’s allegations.

    “No, it’s not true. I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened.
    And it didn’t,” Biden told host Mika Brezezinski.

    : This story has been updated with a new headline and a comment
    : from Ted Kaufman, Biden’s chief of staff in 1993.

    --
    Every American should want President Trump and his administration to
    handle the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully. Those who
    seem eager to see the president fail and to call every administration
    misstep a fiasco risk letting their partisanship blind them to the
    demands not only of civic responsibility but of basic decency.

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