Daily US Times: Tara Reade, the woman who accuses 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her 27 years ago has called on him to quit the White House race.
She urged Mr Biden to “please step forward and be held accountable”. “You should not be running on character for the president of the United States,” she adds. Biden denies the accusation.
What are the accusations of Ms Reade?
Ms Reade was working as a staff assistant to Mr Biden from 1992-93, when he was a senator for the US state of Delaware.
Now 56-year old woman says that in 1993 he forced her up against a wall in the halls of Congress, and put his hands under her shirt and skirt, penetrating her with a finger, after she delivered him his gym bag.
She told podcast host Katie Halper in March: “I remember him saying, first, as he was doing it ‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’ and then him saying to me, when I pulled away… he said ‘Come on man, I heard you liked me.’”
Ms Reade explained her most detailed and graphic account of the alleged assault to US media personality Megyn Kelly. She said that Biden kissed her neck and told her he wanted to have sex with her, using an obscene term.
She said: “So, he had one hand underneath my shirt, and the other had, I had a skirt on, and he went down my skirt and then went up and I remember I was up almost on my tippy toes.”
“When he went inside the skirt, he was talking to me at the same time, and he was leaning into me and I pulled this way away from his head.” When she refused his advances, she said: “He looked at me and said, ‘What the hell, man, I heard you liked me’.”
She added: “He pointed his finger at me and he said ‘You’re nothing to me. You’re nothing’.”
When Ms Reade was asked if she wanted Mr Biden to withdraw from the race, she replied: “I wish he would, but he won’t, but I wish he would. That’s how I feel emotionally.”
She also offered a lie detector test about her claim but the condition is Mr Biden have to do that also.
She said: “I will take one if Joe Biden takes one.”
She said she has been facing tremendous harassment in social media and getting death threats after stepping up about the alleged incident.
How did Biden’s campaign respond?
After Ms Reade’s interview aired, Biden campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield said in a statement that the alleged story contained “inconsistencies”.
The statement said: “Women must receive the benefit of the doubt. They must be able to come forward and share their stories without fear of retribution or harm – and we all have a responsibility to ensure that.”
“At the same time, we can never sacrifice the truth. And the truth is that these allegations are false and that the material that has been presented to back them up, under scrutiny, keeps proving their falsity,” it includes.
Mr Biden broke his silence on the matter two weeks ago, appearing on a morning television show to brand the allegations “false”.
“I’m saying unequivocally: it never, never happened,” he said about Tara Reade’s allegations during a TV interview.
He also asked for a search of the Senate archives for any record of a complaint she allegedly filed at that time.
Ms Reade made a criminal complaint to the police last month.
Without naming Mr Biden, she said she was a victim of sexual assault. she said the complaint was filed “for safety reasons only” as the statute of limitations for her claim had expired.
Mr Biden is running against Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by some 25 women.
Biden put out his statement before speaking to MSNBC’s Morning Joe.