Biden asks secretary of the Senate to locate any Tara Reade complaint after National Archives correction

Mary Margaret Olohan, DCNF

  • 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden requested Friday that the secretary of the Senate locate any complaint made by his accuser Tara Reade.
  • His request comes after he incorrectly said on MSNBC that any such complaint would be held by the National Archives. The National Archives refuted this Friday and said that any such records would be under the control of the Senate.
  • “I am writing to request your assistance in in determining whether 27 years ago a staff member in my United States office filed a complaint alleging sexual harassment,” Biden wrote in a letter to the Senate secretary. 

2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden requested Friday that the secretary of the Senate locate any complaint made by his accuser Tara Reade.

Image: Joe Biden- Gage Skidmore, Flickr

The former vice president issued a letter to Secretary Julie Adams asking for her to find out whether Reade ever issued a sexual harassment complaint against him.

Biden’s request follows his Friday morning appearance on MSNBC where he denied Reade’s allegations and said that if any such complaint existed, it would be in the National Archives.

But the National Archives told the Daily Caller News Foundation that this is incorrect information: “any records of Senate personnel complaints from 1993 would have remained under the control of the Senate.”

Biden notes in his letter to Adams that he previously understood that such a complaint would be in the possession of the National Archives but has been since informed that it would be under the control of the Senate.

“I am writing to request your assistance in in determining whether 27 years ago a staff member in my United States office filed a complaint alleging sexual harassment,” Biden wrote in the letter.

“According to public reports, the staff member, Ms. Tara Reade, has stated that in 1993 she filed such a complaint with the office responsible for enforcing the Senate employees’ rights in the workplace,” Biden states in the letter.

Biden asks Adams to “take or direct” any necessary steps to find the complaint and to make its results public.

“I would ask that the public release include not only a complaint if one exists, but any and all other documents in the records that relate to the allegation,” he concludes.

Reade worked as a Senate staffer for Biden in 1993 and has accused the then-senator of kissing her, touching her and penetrating her with his fingers without her consent.

After the alleged assault, Reade told the DCNF, she complained about sexual harassment to three Biden staffers: Marianne Baker, Biden’s executive assistant, and Dennis Toner and Ted Kaufman, who were both top Biden aides at the time.

But Kaufman, Baker and Toner would not take action when Reade complained to them about sexual harassment, Reade said, so she filed a written complaint with an office she called the “Senate Personnel Office.”

She was told that someone would call her in for a full discussion and meeting — but “that never happened,” she told the DCNF. She said she does not have the complaint form.

Reade attempted to track the complaint down in 2019. She said she was told that “it would have gone back to Joe Biden’s office, to the chief of staff.” She is unsure who told her this, but believes it might have been OWCR.

If this complaint were located, she said, it would show that Biden’s staff members lied on the record when they said they did not have meetings with her, noting that she had more than five meetings total — informal and formal — with these staff members.

It would also show the approximate dates of when some of the events she has mentioned happened, she told the DCNF.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW

Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!

Success! Thank you for donating. Please share BPR content to help combat the lies.

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

BPR INSIDER COMMENTS

Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!

Latest Articles