Democratic U.S. presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the 11th Democratic candidates debate of the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, held in CNN's Washington studios without an audience because of the global coronavirus pandemic, in Washington, U.S., March 15, 2020. (Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden categorically denies sexually assaulting former aide, Tara Reade, in 1993 declaring, "This never happened."
"I'm saying unequivocally, it never, never happened," he told MSNBC's Morning Joe on Friday in his first public comments about this simmering scandal.
Biden also made the same denial in a Medium post published Friday where he said he recognizes his responsibility to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished
"So I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago. They aren't true. This never happened."
Biden said he'd ask the National Archives to make public any record of a complaint from Reade she filed at the time. Biden said any such document won't be kept among his Senate papers stored at the University of Delaware.
Biden also asked the media to consider the huge inconsistencies in Reade's allegations. It's known Reade told her friends she was allegedly sexually harassed by Biden, but never mentioned any sexual assault. Reade worked as a junior staffer at Biden's office in 1993.
Reade's brother, Collin Moulton, told The Washington Post she had told him in 1993 Biden had "behaved inappropriately by touching her neck and shoulders" but not about any sexual assault.
Reade publicly accused Biden last year of touching her shoulders and neck and making her feel uncomfortable. She did not mention any sexual assault, however.
In his statement, Biden said "responsible news organizations should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways."
Biden admitted Reade raised some of these issues with her supervisor and senior staffers at his at the time. He said these two senior staffers "have said, unequivocally, that she never came to them and complained or raised issues."
Biden also said news organizations have talked with to dozens of former staffers "have not found one -- not one -- who corroborated her allegations in any way. Indeed, many of them spoke to the culture of an office that would not have tolerated harassment in any way -- as indeed I would not have."
Reade first publicly revealed her sexual assault allegation against Biden in interviews this year. She said she was asked to deliver a duffel bag to Biden, then a senator from Delaware. In a corridor somewhere in the Capitol Hill complex, Reade said Biden "had me up against the wall; he used his knee to spread open my legs," and "put his fingers inside me."
A friend of Reade's said Reade had told her Biden sexually assaulted her on Capitol Hill a few days after the alleged incident.
