Reade: 'I didn't use sexual harassment' in Biden complaint

Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who alleges Joe Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years back, says she filed a restricted report with a congressional personnel office that didn't explicitly accuse him of sexual assault or harassment.

“I remember discussing him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” Reade said within an interview Friday with The Associated Press. “I know that I was too scared to create about the sexual assault.”

Reade said she described her problems with Biden but “the primary word I used - and I understand I didn’t use sexual harassment - I used ‘uncomfortable.’ And I recall ‘retaliation.’”

Reade described the report following the AP uncovered additional transcripts and notes from its interviews with Reade this past year in which she says she “chickened out” after going to the Senate personnel office. The AP interviewed Reade in 2019 after she accused Biden of uncomfortable and inappropriate touching. She didn't raise allegations of sexual assault against Biden until this season, around enough time he became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

The existence of the Senate report has turned into a key component of the accusations against Biden, which he has flatly denied. Reade says she doesn’t have a copy of the report, and Biden said Friday that he's not aware that any complaint against him exists. He asked the Senate and the National Archives to search their records to attempt to find a complaint from Reade.

But Reade is suggesting that whether or not the report surfaces, it could not corroborate her assault allegations because she chose not to detail them at that time.

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

On Friday, Reade said she was discussing 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, including her contact information, the office she worked for plus some broad information on her problems with Biden.

Reade was among 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 among 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 an area or anything. It wasn’t that kind of vibe.”

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 learned an additional transcript and notes from those interviews on Friday.

A recording of 1 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. Some of this interview was also recorded on video, but not the part where she spoke of experiencing “chickened out.”

The AP declined to create information on the 2019 interviews at the time because reporters were not able to corroborate her allegations, and areas 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 along with his fingers. She says she was fired from Biden’s office after filing a complaint with the Senate alleging harassment.

The accusation has roiled Biden’s presidential campaign, sparking anxiety among Democrats. Republicans have accused Biden backers of hypocrisy, arguing they have been quick to believe women who've accused President Donald Trump and other conservatives of assault. Trump has faced multiple accusations of assault and harassment, all of which he denies.

Reade says she was reluctant to talk about information on 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.

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

The AP in addition has spoken to two additional people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their families' privacy, who said Reade had told them about areas of her allegations against Biden years back.

One friend, who knew Reade in 1993, said Reade told them about the alleged assault when it happened. The next friend met Reade more than a decade following 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.