Former federal prosecutor Michael J. Stern has laid out a damning case that casts more than serious doubts on the accusation by Tara Reade that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. First, let me urge you to read the whole thing, although I’ll do my best to give you some key highlights.
Perhaps most compelling is Stern’s detailed discussion of significant problems with the two things that have made news this week: the 1993 phone call to Larry King from an anonymous woman—whom Reade says was her since-deceased mother; and the Business Insider piece about Reade having told other people about the assault years ago.
Because that last one is the most compelling piece of evidence for many people, let me quickly summarize Stern’s key points: 1) Reade told Lynda LaCasse in 1995 or 1996, at least two years after the assault allegedly happened. Stern points out that this is NOT contemporaneous: “Legal references to a contemporaneous recounting typically refer to hours or days — the point being that facts are still fresh in a person's mind and the statement is more likely to be accurate.” 2) Reade spoke to Lorraine Sanchez in the mid-1990s, but did not give Biden’s name to her, only saying “that her former boss in Washington, DC, had sexually harassed her.” Note: harassed, not assaulted. 3) When Reade previously provided lists of people she had told about the incident, LaCasse and Sanchez were not on those lists. Stern’s breakdown of the Larry King call is equally powerful and substantive.
There’s a lot more in Stern’s piece, including contradictory statements Reade has made publicly about why she left Biden’s staff, as well as her having supposedly filed a formal complaint with the Senate personnel office—yet she doesn’t have a copy, even though she does have copies of her Senate employment records from the year she left, and The New York Times couldn’t find the formal complaint in the Senate’s records. This is all separate from the positive things she’s said and written about Biden until very, very recently, the changing story even in just the last year on the incident itself, the Russia/Putin stuff, and more.
I’ll leave you with two more quotes from Stern that make very important, specific points. First:
►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.”
Next:
►Statements to others. Reade’s brother, Collin Moulton, told The Post recently that he remembers Reade telling him Biden inappropriately touched her neck and shoulders. He said nothing about a sexual assault until a few days later, when he texted The Post that he remembered Reade saying Biden put his hand "under her clothes.”
That Reade’s brother neglected to remember the most important part of her allegation initially could lead people to believe he recounted his Post interview to Reade, was told he left out the most important part, and texted it to The Post to avoid a discussion about why he failed to mention it in the first place.
We will likely never know what happened between Tara Reade and Joe Biden. There are no witnesses. There are, however, enough serious questions about the specifics of this accusation that mean we cannot, at this point, simply accept that the accusation is true.
Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)