Tara Reade, President Biden’s former staffer who alleged last year that Biden sexually assaulted her when he was a Senator in 1993, discussed the resignation of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s after an investigation revealed he sexually harassed 11 women.
Reade addressed the attempts to discredit survivors of Cuomo’s sexual misconduct made by Time’s Up #MeToo organization CEO Tina Tchen and co-founder Roberta Kaplan.
“My heart is with the brave Cuomo survivors who endured attempts to discredit them like I did coming forward about Joe Biden with the help of non-profits that were supposed to help women like Time's Up,” Reade told Fox News. “May there be some measure of justice for the survivors. Now, let's call for a real investigation into Joe Biden and expose the corruption protecting powerful predators.”
Reade added: “Time's Up committed the most hideous betrayal to protect their most powerful friends and not only not protect survivors but cause harm."
The New York Attorney General’s investigation into Cuomo found that the two Time’s Up leaders advised Cuomo’s office on an op-ed built to discredit his first accuser, Lindsey Boylan. The investigation said that Cuomo’s op-ed “denied the legitimacy of Ms. Boylan’s allegations, impugned her credibility, and attacked her claims as politically motivated.”
According to Fox News, “Reade previously sought help from the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund in January 2020 to help defray the costs of public relations and legal fees, before going public two months later with her allegation against Biden. However, while the organization offered attorney referrals, she said they denied her funding, citing concerns it could affect its nonprofit 501(c)(3) status as her allegation is against a politician actively running for office.”
Reade told Fox News, “The revelations and Cuomo's resignation is a signal to the powerful men with nasty behavior that survivors' voices will be heard and their behavior no longer rewarded. Not from a governor and not from the president of the United States.”
“I hope for justice. Cuomo resigned today and Biden should also resign,” she added.
Reade first accused Biden of sexual harassment in 2019, later detailing in 2020 a time Biden allegedly sexually assaulted her in an interview with journalist Katie Halper.
“It was the strangest thing,” Reade said. “There was no like exchange really. He just had me up against the wall. I was wearing a shirt and a skirt but I wasn’t wearing stockings. It was kind of a hot day. And I was wearing heels and I remember my legs had been hurting from the marble of the Capitol, walking on it. So I remember that kind of stuff. I remember it was kind of an unusually warm day. And I remember he just had me up against the wall and the wall was cold. It happened all at once. The gym bag, I don’t know where it went. I handed it to him. It was gone and then his hands were on me and underneath my clothes.”
Reade added, “And then he went down my skirt, but then up inside it and he penetrated me with his fingers. And he was kissing me at the same time and he was saying something to me ... I can’t remember everything he said ... when I pulled away, when he got finished doing what he was doing and I pulled back and he said, ‘come on man, I heard you liked me.’ And it’s that phrase [that] stayed with me because I kept thinking what I might’ve said [to make him think that]. And I can’t remember exactly, if he said ‘I thought,’ or ‘I heard,’ but it’s like he implied I had done this.”
