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US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has denied sexually assaulting a former aide to the Senate in 1993, his first public comments on the matter after facing intense pressure to tackle the indictment.
“No, it’s not true. I’m saying unequivocally that it never, ever happened,” Biden said in an interview on MSNBC when asked if he assaulted his assistant.
A Californian woman named Tara Reade, who worked as a staff assistant in Biden’s United States Senate office from December 1992 to August 1993, accused Biden in media interviews of pinning her to a wall in 1993 and assaulting her. sexually.
Biden, 77, who will be the Democratic candidate to face Republican President Donald Trump in the US elections on November 3, has faced mounting pressure inside and outside his party to directly address the accusation.
In a statement before the interview, Biden asked the United States Senate to request the National Archives to publish any personnel records that may indicate whether the aide filed a complaint against Biden at the time.
He said that the personal documents from his years in the Senate, which were donated to the University of Delaware and have not yet been made publicly available, do not contain any personal files.
Reuters has been unable to independently confirm Reade’s allegation and has also been unable to contact Reade or a representative for comment.
Several media outlets that have published Ms. Reade’s account, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, have interviewed a friend who said that Ms. Reade told him about the alleged assault at the time. Another friend told the Times that Ms. Reade told her in 2008 about a previous traumatic incident that involved Mr. Biden. Reade’s brother also confirmed parts of Reade’s account to The Intercept and the Post.
On Monday, the Business Insider news website published an interview with a former neighbor who said Reade told her in the mid-1990s that Biden had assaulted her.
Ms. Reade, 56, told media interviewers that she complained at the time about sexual harassment, but not sexual assault, to three of Biden’s Senate aides.
The Biden campaign released a statement from one, Marianne Baker, who said she has never received any reports of inappropriate behavior in nearly 20 years of work for Biden.
The Post and Times interviewed the other two aides, who told the newspapers that they did not recall Ms. Reade’s complaint.
Ms. Reade was one of eight women who came forward last year to say that Biden had hugged, kissed, or touched them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable, although none accused him of sexual assault. Ms. Reade publicly accused him of the assault on a podcast in March.
Some prominent Democratic women have stepped forward to defend Biden. Others have asked him to address the accusation.
“It can’t seem like they are ignoring it just because it is an uncomfortable truth for certain people in the Democratic Party,” said Nina Turner, who was co-chair of the national campaign for Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, who left the Democratic Career and endorsed by Mister Biden.
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