Tara Reade, who accused President Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993, is requesting Russian citizenship from Vladimir Putin due to concerns about her safety in the United States.
She served as Biden’s former aide in the 1990s when he represented Delaware as a U.S. Senator. While Biden was in the midst of his most recent presidential campaign, Reade filed a criminal complaint with the Washington Metropolitan Police Department in April 2020 accusing him of pushing her against the wall in a Senate corridor and penetrating her with his fingers.
Sitting alongside Maria Butina, who was arrested in 2018 after pleading guilty to conspiring to act as a foreign agent in an attempt to influence NRA and U.S. policy to benefit the Kremlin, Reade detailed her current state of mind while lamenting that she’s still “never gotten an investigation” into the current U.S. president.
“One thing I want to make clear, and I want my fellow American citizens to hear this if they see this: Don’t be intimidated because I’m not,” Reade told the interviewer from Sputnik International as part of a four-plus hour interview. “I’m not going to be intimidated, bullied or silenced. I’m going to speak out and I’m willing to speak under oath about the corruption I witnessed, about the crime I experienced. And it is remarkable that Joe Biden raped me when I worked for him at US Congress and I’m supposed to be the fugitive. That is ridiculous and it’s unacceptable.”
She went on to say that she “hopes to find safety,” thanking her friends in Russia for “opening their arms”—including Butina.
“I am going to make a request and it’s a large one: I’d like to apply for citizenship in Russia from the president of the Russian federation, Vladimir Putin, and hopefully Maria can help me from the State Duma,” Reade added, saying she also wants to maintain her U.S. citizenship. “I do promise to be a good citizen and move forward with my life in a positive way.”
Reade made mention of Republican Representatives Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, both of whom purportedly said they would investigate the Biden accusations on Reade’s behalf. After Reade posted on social media that she would testify under oath against Biden, Gaetz allegedly told her that he feared for her physical safety in the U.S.
Now no longer a Democrat, Reade claimed that her accusations made prior to the 2020 election were ignored by her local political Democratic representatives, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Nancy Pelosi.
In 2021, Reade told Sputnik International that her previous efforts of connecting with Democratic officials including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, failed.
Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, now the minority leader in the U.S. House, referenced the accusations during an interview with WNYC in 2020.
“It’s got to be taken seriously because this is a serious allegation raised by a serious individual and needs to be investigated seriously,” he said. “We’ve probably got to hear from him [Biden] at some point directly.”
Biden’s comments in reaction to Reade’s claims have been few and far between. About one month following her allegations in 2020, Biden responded by saying sexual assault “never happened.”
“While the details of these allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not complicated,” Biden said in a statement, according to NPR. “One is that women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced.
“The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny. 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.”
In May 2020, PBS NewsHour spoke with 74 former Biden staffers—including 62 women—to gauge the veracity of the allegations against the then-Democratic front-runner. None interviewed said they were sexually harassed, assaulted or experienced misconduct; however, all said that Reade’s concerns should be heard and acknowledged.
Reade’s accusations also occurred during the arguable height of the #MeToo movement. During the press conference today, Reade made mention of being ignored by Time’s Up—a nonprofit organization founded by Hollywood celebrities to benefit victims of sexual harassment in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the “Me Too” movement.
Newsweek reached out via email to Time’s Up.
The former Biden staffer also used her pulpit to question the United States’ real role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, mentioning defense contractors and manufacturers, a rewriting of history in the U.S. education system as it relates to Nazism and even discussing the U.S. economy amid the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations.
Mikhail Troitskiy, professor of practice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Newsweek via email that Reade’s appearance at the barely-watched press conference in Moscow “is likely a stunt pulled by entrepreneurial Russian PR managers.” It may also have been a matter of personal interest for Butina, he added.
“In any case, if Tara Reade still had a case against President Biden or on any other matter in the United States, her credibility will be seriously undermined by her Moscow press conference,” Troitskiy said. “It is most likely that Reade was offered a job of a commentator in the Russian state media with a mission to highlight and dissect political, economic and social challenges faced by the United States.
“Her press conference may have been a step on the way to accepting that job.”
Newsweek reached out to Reade via email and social media for comment.
The post Biden Accuser Tara Reade Leaves U.S. for ‘Safety’ of Russia appeared first on Newsweek.
