Little Girl Lost?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who alleges Joe Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years ago, says she filed a limited report with a congressional personnel office that did not explicitly accuse him of sexual assault or harassment. https://t.co/4Ybo9XEjRk

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) May 2, 2020

According to a transcript of her 2019 interview with the AP, Reade said: “They have this counseling office or something, and I think I walked in there once, but then I chickened out.” She made a similar statement in a second interview with AP that same day, according to written notes from the interview.

On Friday, Reade said she was referring to having “chickened out” by not filing full harassment or assault allegations against Biden. In multiple interviews with the AP on Friday, Reade insisted she filed an “intake form” at the Senate personnel office, which included her contact information, the office she worked for and some broad details of her issues with Biden.

Reade was one of eight women who came forward last year with allegations that Biden made them feel uncomfortable with inappropriate displays of affection. Biden acknowledged the complaints and promised to be “more mindful about respecting personal space in the future.”

During one of the April 2019 interviews with the AP, she said Biden rubbed her shoulders and neck and played with her hair. She said she was asked by an aide in Biden’s Senate office to dress more conservatively and told “don’t be so sexy.”

She said of Biden: “I wasn’t scared of him, that he was going to take me in a room or anything. It wasn’t that kind of vibe.”

I will wear out my welcome here, but this report depends more and more on "I was just a scared little girl" excuses, and the repitition of "sexual assault" and "sexual harassment" as if they were the same thing.  Well, and she wasn't that upset in 2019, but she is now.  I'm not discounting the truth of her reports of her emotional state; but this goes against, not towards, her credibility.

The AP reviewed notes of its 2019 interviews with Reade after she came forward in March with allegations of sexual assault against Biden. But reporters discovered an additional transcript and notes from those interviews on Friday.

A recording of one of the interviews was deleted before Reade emerged in 2020 with new allegations against Biden, in keeping with the reporter’s standard practice for disposing of old interviews. A portion of that interview was also recorded on video, but not the part in which she spoke of having “chickened out.”

The AP declined to publish details of the 2019 interviews at the time because reporters were unable to corroborate her allegations, and aspects of her story contradicted other reporting.

In recent weeks, Reade told the AP and other news organizations that Biden sexually assaulted her, pushing her against a wall in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building in 1993, groping her and penetrating her with his fingers. She says she was fired from Biden’s office after filing a complaint with the Senate alleging harassment.
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Reade says she was reluctant to share details of the assault during her initial conversations with reporters over a year ago because she was scared of backlash, and was still coming to terms with what happened to her.

Now, the thing is, that may be true; but it's also damned convenient.  It's the equivalent of the evasive "I don't remember" when you don't want to admit you have information that will make you look bad, or even get you in trouble with someone else if you talk.  Is it true?  Is it not true?  Damned hard to tell.

Two of Reade’s associates said publicly this past week that Reade had conversations with them that they said corroborated aspects of her allegation. One, a former neighbor, said Reade told her about the alleged assault a few years after Reade said it happened. The other, a former coworker, said Reade told her she had been sexually harassed by her boss during her previous job in Washington.

Are we talking about the same account here?  One says "assault," which is very serious; the other says "harassment," which is serious, too, but not sexual assault (and even there we have to distinguish between criminal and civil assault, because just touching someone in a way they find disagreeable can be civil assault.  Sexual assault is, again, a much more serious matter.)

The AP has also spoken to two additional people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their families’ privacy, who said Reade had told them about aspects of her allegations against Biden years ago.

One friend, who knew Reade in 1993, said Reade told them about the alleged assault when it happened. The second friend met Reade more than a decade after the alleged incident and confirmed that Reade had a conversation with the friend in 2007 or 2008 about experiencing sexual harassment from Biden while working in his Senate office.

There we go again:  assault v. harassment.  Harassment could be unwanted touching; sexual assault would be what Reade has alleged now:  digital penetration.  Which story was told when?  That's the detail that matters.  And 2007-2008; isn't that when Biden was considering running for President; and Bernie Sanders was, too?

And this is the problem with trying these matters in the court of public opinion.  As the Lovely Wife said last night, it's impossible to imagine Joe Biden putting his finger in Ms. Reade as she alleges he did, because that's so unlike Joe Biden.  It's impossible to imagine Trump doing that to a woman either, she said, because he doesn't have the guts.

The linchpin of Reade's allegation, for her supporters, was that personnel report.  Now that it appears it might appear, suddenly Reade has an excuse for it not saying anything, and that excuse is:  "I was just a scared little girl."  Sexual harassment is a serious matter, and it happens, and it shouln't.  Sexual assault is a serious matter, and it happens, and it shouldn't.  But while everyone wants Joe Biden to speak (and he did), the burden of proof is still on Ms. Reade.  Biden is not guilty until he proves his innocence (how does anybody do that?).  She needs to bring forth credible evidence.

Someone made some big bets on the story and they’re losing. https://t.co/UIv8wl4ekx

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) May 2, 2020

And now she says she doesn't have it, except for her emotional state (which no one can gauge.  Is she even distraught?  She says so, but does that prove anything?) and her memory.  And apparently she doesn't want to say anything about that on camera.

And a blithe confusion of "sexual harassment" and "sexual assault," which is really just sloppy journalism.

Yup. Timing... wait for it....tic toc

— taratweets ( Alexandra Tara Reade) (@ReadeAlexandra) March 4, 2020

Someday people are going to realize we can see them on the internet.