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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.
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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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