(Note: This story has been updated on April 12 following the New York Times and Washington Post reports on Alexandra Tara Reade’s allegations against Biden; on April 25 following new information about a 1993 talk show call from Reade’s mother; and on April 27 following a neighbor’s account of being told of Reade’s allegations in 1995 or 1996. See update at the end.)

While America’s attention is mostly consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, a story that would normally be a bombshell is flying under the radar: an accusation of sexual assault against the Democratic Party’s almost-certain presidential nominee. Yet even accounting for our extraordinary situation, Alexandra Tara Reade’s allegations against Joe Biden have gotten remarkably little notice — no mention in the New York Times or Washington Post, for example. Nor has she received widespread support from feminists. Actress and #MeToo activist Alyssa Milano issued a statement saying that she still endorses Biden and that believing women “should not come at the expense of … giving men their due process and investigating situations.”

Should Reade’s accusations be taken more seriously? And if not, what does that mean for the Democrats’ post-#MeToo commitment to the principle of believing and supporting women who come forward as sexual assault survivors?

Reade, 56*, a California-born freelance writer, onetime actress and model, and advocate for victims of domestic violence, was a staffer in then-Senator Biden’s office from December 1992 until August 1993. A year ago, after several women accused Biden of unwanted (non-sexual) touching, Reade, then living in Nevada, also came forward to recount such an experience. According to the Nevada County Union:

Alexandra Tara Reade said that in 1993 she was in her mid-20s when Biden, then a senator from Delaware, touched her several times making her feel uncomfortable. Reade said her responsibilities in the senator’s office were reduced after she refused to serve drinks at an event — what she called a desire of Biden’s because he liked her legs. Reade said she felt pushed out and left Biden’s employ in August 1993 after some nine months. “He used to put his hand on my shoulder and run his finger up my neck,” Reade said. “I would just kind of freeze and wait for him to stop doing that.”

Reade also claimed that another staffer told her Biden wanted her to serve drinks at his fundraising event because “he liked her legs,” and that her career was sidelined because she refused.

Shortly after Reade went public, internet sleuths dug up some posts she had written in praise of Vladimir Putin. Some promptly labeled her a Russian agent tasked with taking down Biden and dubbed her “Alexandra Traitor Reade.” She wrote an op-ed defending herself as a “loyal American” and “Democratic foot soldier.”

Shortly after that, the story of Biden’s #MeToo problems faded away. But nearly a year later, Reade resurfaced.

On March 24, Ryan Grim reported in the The Intercept that Reade had approached the sexual harassment victim advocacy organization Time’s Up for assistance and had been turned down “because the person she was accusing, Biden, was a candidate for federal office, and assisting a case against him could jeopardize the organization’s nonprofit status.” But two days later, the story had been updated with something far more explosive: Reade had given an interview to podcaster Katie Halper alleging that Biden had not simply harassed her but sexually assaulted her by putting his hand under her skirt and penetrating her with his fingers. (A full transcript of the interview is available at the Current Affairs website.)

Reade’s new story — which she told Halper she did not share last year because she felt “shut down” by reporters who made it clear they were interested in a narrative where “it wasn’t a sexual thing” — is that one day, the scheduler at Biden’s office told her to bring Biden his gym bag.

She said he was down towards the Capitol and “he’ll meet you.” And so I went down and he was at first talking to someone, I could see him at a distance and then they went away. And then, we were in like the side area. And he just said, Hey, come here, Tara. And then I handed him the thing and he greeted me, he remembered my name. And it was the strangest thing. 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 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. 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 remember him saying first before, like as he was doing it, “do you want to go somewhere else?” And then him saying to me when I pulled away … “come on man, I heard you liked me.”

If true, this is — it goes without saying — a vile and criminal act. It should also be said that Reade has at least some corroborative evidence: Grim and Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson report that Reade’s brother and a friend say she contemporaneously told them about the assault. For Reade’s supporters (who are generally, like Reade herself, strong supporters of Bernie Sanders) this means that her accusation clears the bar for being considered “credible.”

And yet even with minimal scrutiny, Reade’s account has major credibility problems.

Let’s leave aside the question of whether the act she describes would be in character for Biden, whose other “#MeToo problems” consist of several women claiming that he touched their hair or hugged them without their consent (as well as “creepy Uncle Joe” photos, some of which are with women who said the interactions were misinterpreted and entirely benign).

Here are some of the other oddities and red flags in this story.

According to Reade, the sexual assault happened in a semi-public place.

Reade says that when she first caught up with Biden with the gym bag, she saw him from a distance while he was talking to someone. After that person left, she and Biden ended up in a “side area” where he allegedly proceeded to assault her.

When I emailed Grim to ask about specifics, he replied:

It was in the Russell Senate Office Building in a little tucked away corner that offered privacy but wasn’t a standalone room. She wasn’t exactly sure where but inside Russell there are definitely a number of little corners that fit those descriptions, most of them next to stairwells and/or elevator banks.

Morality aside, for a senator to sexually assault a staffer in a location with a nontrivial risk of discovery would require a credulity-stretching degree of recklessness. Keep in mind, too, that this was a moment of high awareness of sexual harassment and politicians were very much under the microscope. In March 1992, a little over a year before Biden’s alleged assault on Reade, Sen. Brock Adams, a liberal Democrat from Washington, dropped his bid for re-election after The Seattle Times published accounts by eight anonymous women accusing him of sexual assault. A few months later, in November of that year, a major scandal broke out when the Washington Post published a front-page story detailing allegations of sexual harassment by ten women — mostly former staffers but also lobbyists — against Sen. Robert Packwood, the five-term Republican Senator from Oregon who, like Biden, was known as a champion of women’s rights. Thirteen more women came forward in February 1993, about three months before Biden’s alleged assault on Reade. (By the way, none of the accusations against Packwood, which ranged from lewd jokes to aggressive sexual advances including forcible kissing, were as grave as Reade’s allegation against Biden). While Packwood hung on until 1995, the effect on his career was immediately devastating.

Robert Packwood holds a news conference on September 6, 1995 vowing to fight his expulsion from the Senate on charges of sexual harassment. He resigned two days later. (Nathaniel Harari/Getty Images)

Of course, the fact that it would have been colossally stupid and risky for Biden to do what Reade says he did does not prove he didn’t do it. People, including politicians, sometimes do stupid and risky things, such as engaging in sexual activity with an intern in the Oval Office — though it should be noted that even Bill Clinton and Bob Packwood have never been accused of sexual misconduct in the hallway of a government building. But nothing in Biden’s long career indicates a propensity for suicidally reckless behavior.

According to Reade, Biden’s assault on her took place after she had already complained about being sexually harassed by him.

That’s another startling detail that emerges from the Katie Halper interview. At one point, Reade says, “I actually did come forward in 1993 but not to the press. But I went through protocol and complained.” She then clarifies that her complaint was not about sexual assault but about sexual harassment, both toward herself — the unwanted touching and the incident with being asked to serve drinks because of Biden’s appreciation for her legs — and as a general part of the office atmosphere. She says that she informally complained to her female supervisor at first, then went to Biden’s then-chief of staff Denis Toner, and finally to top Biden advisor Ted Kaufman (who served out the remainder of Biden’s Senate term in 2009–2010 after Biden became vice president). She also says that as a result, she experienced retaliation from the higher-ups: she was told to dress more conservatively, and “they were finding fault with my work all the time, like every little thing.”

Especially considering that the Bob Packwood scandal was still unfolding at that point, it seems likely that if this happened, a senior staffer would have informed Biden of this situation and cautioned him to stay away from Reade. At this point, “stupid and reckless” crosses over into “crazy.” Once again, that doesn’t prove Biden didn’t do it. But it counts against the probability that he did.

Important potential corroborative witnesses are either missing or disputing Reade’s account.

While the sexual assault allegedly occurred with no witnesses, there are important details of Reade’s account that could be corroborated — namely, her other alleged mistreatment at Biden’s hands. Were any attempts made to reach Toner, Kaufman, or Reade’s female supervisor (whose name is bleeped out in the Halper interview but whom Salon has identified as Marianne Baker) for information on her complaint? Or to reach the female legislative aide who Reade says argued with other staffers on her behalf, saying that she shouldn’t be “objectified” as a cocktail server at Biden’s event?

When I posed these questions to Halper, she did not respond to two emails (which my tracker shows were promptly opened), despite having previously agreed by Twitter direct message to answer some questions about Reade. The Intercept’s Grim confirmed only that Reade’s brother and friend said she had told them contemporaneously about the sexual assault. “Beyond that, I’d rather not get into reporting process,” he wrote.

According to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, both Toner and Baker deny that Reade ever complained to them about Biden wanting her to serve drinks because he liked her legs. Baker, who was Biden’s executive assistant from 1982 to 2000, has also released a statement asserting that she “never once witnessed, or heard of, or received, any reports of inappropriate conduct, period — not from Ms. Reade, not from anyone.” She described Reade’s story as “false allegations … in complete contradiction to both the inner workings of our Senate office and to the man I know and worked so closely with for almost two decades.”

Toner and Baker are longtime Biden loyalists, so it’s not inconceivable that they may be willing to cover for him. But Reade’s brother and friend are hardly neutral, either, and so far they seem to be talking only to supportive outlets. Newsweek, which reported on the accusation on March 27, apparently did not interview either of them; Marcotte writes that the brother did not respond to her query and Reade would not put her in touch with the friend.

Reade’s descriptions of the cultural setting of 1992–1993 do not ring true.

In the Halper interview, explaining why she didn’t report Biden’s behavior, Reade says: “It’s just, there was no framework back then and to be fully clear, my mom educated me after it happened that it was sexual assault. I felt, I felt like it was my fault, that I did bring it on.” Earlier, in a Medium essay, she wrote: “This was a time in the 1990’s when discretion was still on the side of the young princes who held office and allowed them to pillage as they saw fit without the nasty consequences.” And in her March 31 interview with Amy Goodman on the Democracy Now! broadcast, Reade said, “We didn’t use the term ‘sexual harassment’ a lot back then.”

This will probably seem plausible to young ones for whom the 1990s are basically the Dark Ages. But some of us boomers still recall that 1992 was “The Year of the Woman,” a moment of feminist upheaval set off by Anita Hill’s testimony at Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings. The Hill-Thomas drama also sparked a “national conversation” on sexual harassment and sexual violence — basically, the #MeToo of the 1990s. As mentioned above, two U.S. Senators were among the casualties. The climate was such that, in August 1993, a New York Times Magazine article about the accusations against Packwood noted: “At a time when sexual harassment is such a highly charged issue, it can be dangerous to attempt to make distinctions between greater and lesser offenses.”

Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill at the October 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee hearings that became a “national teach-in” on sexual harassment. (Getty Images)

This doesn’t mean, of course, that it was easy for a young Senate staffer in 1993 to come forward with an accusation of sexual abuse — especially against a senator respected as a champion of feminist causes. But Reade’s description, just like her claim that she needed to be “educated” about the assaultiveness of being digitally penetrated against her will (despite being a recent college graduate, and a feminist, at a time of intense campus activism against sexual assault), feels more like a recitation of progressive stereotypes about the “bad old days” than a genuine recounting of the events.

Reade’s account of her reaction to the assault has a glaring contradiction.

In the Halper interview, Reade says:

And for me it was like everything, everything shattered in that moment. I looked up to him, he was like my father’s age. He was this champion of women’s rights in my eyes. And I couldn’t believe that was happening.

Reade made a similar claim to Amy Goodman:

I was trying to just get over the shock of it, because I looked up to him. He was supposed to be a champion of women. And I was so thrilled to be at that office and so honored, and it shattered my life and changed the trajectory of my whole career and life.

Yet Reade has also described being inappropriately touched and “objectified” by Biden — and being subjected to a humiliating request to act as a cocktail waitress at his fundraiser because “ the Senator thinks that you’re pretty and that you have nice legs” — prior to that incident. From the Halper interview:

Once in a while I would see him and he would just do that thing that guys do, you know, when they look you up and down and then smile and stuff. It just was obnoxious. I found myself getting more and more withdrawn and timid about speaking out because of the atmosphere. … It definitely wasn’t a progressive office. I was told to just do what I was told.

I get that human emotions are complicated and often irrational. Perhaps Reade is saying that some part of her still believed Biden was a progressive champion of women’s rights and still looked up to him, and the sexual assault took away her last illusions. It doesn’t, by itself, invalidate her account. But it’s only one of many things that don’t quite add up.

Reade seemed to be praising Biden, and specifically his work on sexual assault issues, as recently as three years ago.

In 2016–2017, Reade “liked” or retweeted several tweets in praise of Biden on her “Tara McCabe” Twitter account which she stopped using in May 2017. Two are particularly notable.

One might, perhaps, construe these as bitter sarcasm. But Reade also “liked” tweets from the official Obama White House account about Biden receiving the Medal of Freedom in January 2017.

And in March of that year, she tweeted a comment referring to Biden — in a positive context — as her “old boss.”

(Reade’s pro-Biden Twitter trail was first pointed out in a March 30 Medium post by “Resistance” activists Brian and Eddie Krassenstein. The Krassenstein brothers are infamous political provocateurs who were kicked off Twitter last May for operating multiple fake accounts, so one may view them as a suspect source; but I checked out the tweets they flagged, and they’re real.)

Does this invalidate Reade’s story? Not completely, no. The human mind works in mysterious ways. Perhaps Reade was trying to convince herself that her experience as a “Democratic foot soldier” had been positive. But at the very least, these are additional red flags.

Reade seems to have more general credibility issues.

The Krassensteins also point out that she has given several different versions of how and why she gave up her career in politics in Washington, DC (moved to the Midwest with her then-husband who had accepted an offer to work on a congressman’s campaign; left because she wanted to resume a career in the arts and hated American imperialism; got blacklisted by Biden). On some occasions she has also claimed that she was fired from Biden’s office.

And then there’s that Russia thing.

Between November 2018 and May 2019, Reade wrote several Medium essays not just praising but positively gushing over Putin. (She recently scrubbed them, but not before they were preserved forever on the Internet Archive.)

For instance, in December 2018:

President Putin scares the power elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring, visionary leader. … President Putin is beloved by Russia and he not going anywhere [sic]. Instead of being ensnared in the recent political intrigues (and America is trying hard to set that trap). President Putin is keeping a calm focus on his own country’s development and future, without America. To President Putin, I say keep your eyes to the beautiful future and maybe, just maybe America will come to see Russia as I do, with eyes of love.

Another post, from November of that year, titled “Why a Liberal Democrat Supports Vladimir Putin,” veers into creepy political erotica:

President Putin’s genius is his judo ability to conserve his own energy and let the opponents flail, using up their energy, while he gains position. Currently, President Putin has a higher approval rating in America then [sic] the American President, particularly with women. President Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. His sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity. It is evident that he loves his country, his people and his job. Although his job may seem like in the words of writer, Elizabeth Gilbert on genius, “ trying to swallow the sun.” This is a whole lot to deal with for one mere mortal… President Putin’s obvious reverence for women, children and animals, and his ability with sports is intoxicating to American women.

More recently, Reade has defended herself by claiming these posts were taken out of context:

But Reade also defended Putin on Twitter as late as December 2019 — even after she was labeled a Russian agent in the wake of her original sexual harassment accusation against Biden.

Reade has told Vox that “she no longer feels the same way about Putin since learning more about domestic violence in Russia.” But the Krassensteins point out that in January 2017, using her old Twitter account, Reade retweeted a Chelsea Handler tweet about the Russian parliament overwhelmingly voting to decriminalize low-level domestic violence. (That year, Reade retweeted a number of anti-Putin tweets related to the Trump/Russia connection.)

I can’t pretend to know the reasons for Reade’s abrupt about-face on the subject of Putin and Russia. I don’t believe she’s a Russian agent. What her digital trail suggests to me is that, not to put too fine a point on it, she’s not very mentally stable.

Of course, the possibility that Reade’s account is 100% true cannot be ruled out. But I would say that even by the low legal standard of “preponderance of the evidence” — i.e., “at least somewhat more probable than not” — a fair-minded fact-finder would have to decide in Biden’s favor.

There are multiple ironies in this case. It’s hilarious to see Marcotte, who back in 2014 railed against “denialism” when people began to question Rolling Stone’s inaccurate account of a fraternity gang rape at the University of Virginia, assert with a straight face that “believe women” actually means something more like “believe women if their accusations are carefully vetted, fact-checked and backed up by evidence.” It’s hilarious to watch the feminist blog Jezebel, which has a history of defending all sorts of dodgy sexual abuse allegations, twist itself into pretzels pointing to the red flags in Reade’s story while still insisting that it’s “both harrowing and credible.” It’s hilarious to watch Milano, who once attended the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings to show support for Christine Blasey Ford, claim that “believe women” is really about “fairness in both directions” and expresses concern that people are going to weaponize #metoo for political gain.”

Here’s Milano in September 2018 on accusations against Brett Kavanaugh:

And here’s Milano in April 2020 on accusations against Joe Biden:

The point here is not that accusations against Kavanaugh and Biden are equally credible. It’s that Milano declared a universal principle and then changed it after accusations surfaced against a different man from a different political party.

The even bigger irony, though, is that Biden himself is a big “believe women” guy. As Emily Yoffe pointed out in Politico last year when he was first accused of inappropriate behavior:

Joe Biden is now living in the world of accusation he helped to create. It is one of peril for the accused, in which they are subjected to expansive definitions of sexual misconduct and little benefit of the doubt. Biden helped to bring it about as the leader of the Obama administration’s cornerstone effort to end sexual assault at colleges and universities, a worthy undertaking that quickly spiraled into overreach. The goal, as Biden often says, was to remake sexual culture on campuses and in society at large — a goal that’s reached remarkable fruition in the #MeToo era.

In September 2017, in a teleconference with campus advocates against sexual assault, Biden referred to those who supported reforming the rules to give the accused more protections as “cultural neanderthals.”

More recently, in 2018, when asked about the allegations of sexual assault against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Biden told reporters:

For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time.

Needless to say, this comment was not forgotten on the right or the left when Reade came forward.

Anyone who championed the various accusations against Kavanaugh (which also had some dubious elements) and found them automatically disqualifying from a Supreme Court seat, and who doesn’t think that Reade’s accusations should tank Biden’s presidential ambitions, has some explaining to do.

Of course, so does anyone who reflexively supported Kavanaugh but thinks Biden should be condemned.

But there are some of us who consistently think that “Believe women” — or “Believe survivors” — is a bad principle in general and a suicidal one in politics. Take accusations seriously, yes. Listen to accusers and evaluate the credibility of their accounts, yes. But also listen to the accused and don’t start with the assumption that false accusations hardly ever happen.

The idea that false accusations are largely a harmful “myth” is embedded in the crusade against sexual assault of which Biden has been a champion for years. So is the idea that it’s wrong to question whether an accuser’s story is contradicted by her behavior (such as publicly praising the former boss who allegedly abused her) and that any inconsistencies in her account are explained by trauma.

Privately, some advocates for the wrongly accused have told me that they want to see Biden taken down by Reade’s allegations because (1) they believe it’s poetic justice and (2) they believe losing “one of their own” to a maybe-false accusation will finally force Democrats to back away from “Believe women” zealotry and embrace a more balanced position. But Biden’s downfall could also have the opposite effect of making the witch-hunts worse: “every accusation should be treated as credible” would be the new standard.

On the other hand, if Biden survives this, his success will have come at the price of rolling back some of the changes he has championed. That’s poetic justice.

Update, April 12, 2020:

Reade’s story has finally received coverage in the New York Times and the Washington Post, with a decidedly skeptical flavor.

Here are several notable facts in the Times article:

Reade now has two friends who say that she gave them at least a partial account of her allegations in the past. From the Times:

A friend said that Ms. Reade told her about the alleged assault at the time, in 1993. A second friend recalled Ms. Reade telling her in 2008 that Mr. Biden had touched her inappropriately and that she’d had a traumatic experience while working in his office. Both friends agreed to speak to The Times on the condition of anonymity to protect the privacy of their families and their self-owned businesses.

Unfortunately, the anonymity makes it difficult to assess the credibility of Reade’s corroborating witnesses. (While I have many doubts about Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against Brett Kavanaugh, it should be noted that Ford had four named witnesses who gave sworn affidavits that she made statements to them about the alleged assault between 2012 and 2017.)

Reade’s brother, comedian Collin Moulton, who according to The Intercept confirmed that she contemporaneously confided in him about the alleged assault, apparently declined to speak to the Times, but did talk to the Post:

Reade’s younger brother, Moulton, said she had told him parts of her experience with Biden but not the alleged sexual assault. “I heard that there was a gym bag incident . . . and that he was inappropriate,” Moulton said. “I remember her telling me he said she was nothing to him.” A few days after that interview, Moulton sent the text saying he wanted to clarify his remarks. He wrote that he recalled Reade telling him in the early 1990s that Biden had cornered her and put his hands under her clothes.

In his email to me (dated March 31), Grim wrote that both Reade’s brother and her friend “confirmed Reade told them about the hallway incident.” I took that to mean that they confirmed being told the full details of the alleged sexual assault. The Post account casts doubt on that.

Reade’s former co-workers at Biden’s office do not confirm her account and say that her description of the atmosphere at the office does not match theirs.

There is no record of Reade’s written complaint about sexual harassment.

While Reade has recently filed a police report about being sexually assaulted in 1993, she has left the perpetrator’s identity out of it — but has confirmed that it’s in reference to Biden.

Oddly, both stories — though clearly favorable to Biden — obscure an important detail that makes Reade’s claim less plausible: the fact that (according to her interview with Halper) she originally complained to her supervisors about sexual harassment before, not after, the alleged sexual assault.

But both the Times story and the one in the Post also has elements that will make it much easier for critics to dismiss them as biased. For instance, both discuss (extensively, in the case of the Times) the sexual misconduct allegations against Trump, presumably to place the accusation against Biden in the context of the upcoming presidential race. But both stories also leave out another important bit of context: Biden’s past embrace of the “believe women” principle with regard to the sexual assault accusations against Kavanaugh and, more generally, his support for policies and rhetoric hostile to the presumption of innocence.

The articles answer some important questions about Reade’s allegations (in particular, about the lack of corroboration from former fellow staffers). But they certainly won’t settle the matter as far as Biden’s detractors are concerned, and is likely to add fuel to the fire.

Update, April 25:

The latest twist in the Tara Reade story is that, apparently, her claim that her late mother called the Larry King Show in 1993 to talk about her situation checks out. Someone dug up a Larry King segment, from a show discussing the cutthroat nature of Washington, DC politics and media, in which the following exchange took place with a caller from St. Luis Obispo, California (where Reade’s mother, Jeanette Altimus, lived at the time).

CALLER: Yes, hello. I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington? My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him. KING: In other words, she had a story to tell but, out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it? CALLER: That’s true.

Reade says she recognizes the voice as her mother’s, and at least for now I’m happy to concede the point. (And, as someone who lost a parent 10 years ago, I can only imagine what a painful moment hearing her voice must have been.)

That said, I think the phone call — assuming it was Altimus — does not prove anything other than the fact that Reade had “problems” in Biden’s office and could not obtain any recourse for them. This confirms Reade’s story that she was bothered by Biden’s behavior and tried to raise the issue with superiors. (It does not confirm that there was a formal complaint.) But I would say that it actually weighs against the sexual assault claim, for two reasons:

The caller says that “the only thing she could have done was go to the press.” Yet Reade has said that when she told her mother about the assault, her mother insisted that she go the police. And indeed she could have. The caller says her daughter chose not to go to the press “out of respect” for the senator. That would be consistent with Reade’s initial account of inappropriate behavior that consisted of touching her neck and shoulders at the office and asking for her to serve drinks at a fundraiser for reasons apparently related to her physical attractiveness. It’s even consistent with The Washington Post’s report that in her interviews with Post reporters last year, Reade blamed Biden’s staff more than she did Biden himself. It does not seem consistent with the story of sexual assault.

Indeed, the caller doesn’t even mention sexual harassment, and it is worth noting that Reade has claimed that some of her issues at Biden’s office were unrelated to harassment — for instance, that she “pushed back” on diversity in the intern pool after being directed to hire only children of Dupont employees. (Bizarrely, she says she wanted to hire “more women,” as if Dupont employees had mainly sons.) But let’s assume that the call was about perceived sexual harassment. Why would Altimus leave out the worst part of her daughter’s experience, use as mild a term as “problems” in reference to sexual assault, and claim that her daughter was staying silent out of “respect” for a rapist — a rapist masquerading as an advocate for rape victims, no less?

Update, April 27 (also added to my more recent article, “A Tale of Two Scandals”):

In a new development, a former next-door neighbor of Reade’s, Lynda LaCasse, had told Business Insider that Reade tearfully told her about being sexually assaulted by Biden, in detail, in 1995 or 1996. LaCasse, a retired former medical staff coordinator and emergency-room clerk for San Luis Obispo General Hospital, is a self-identified “strong Democrat” who says she still plans to vote for Biden and whose Twitter presence apparently indicates a strong dislike of Trump. According to BI:

LaCasse told Insider that in 1995 or 1996, Reade told her she had been assaulted by Biden. “I remember her saying, here was this person that she was working for and she idolized him,” LaCasse said. “And he kind of put her up against a wall. And he put his hand up her skirt and he put his fingers inside her. She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do.” … LaCasse told Insider that she and Reade fell out of touch after Reade moved out of their apartment complex in the late ’90s. But the two reconnected in 2016, she said, when Reade reached out to her on Facebook. In April 2019, Reade told a Nevada City, California, newspaper that Biden had inappropriately touched her and made her uncomfortable, though she did not accuse him of assaulting her. It was after that story, LaCasse said, that she and Reade first revisited the conversation they’d had about Biden in the mid-’90s. “She mentioned that she had come forward,” LaCasse said, “and so I said, ‘Oh my gosh. Yeah. I do remember that.’”

What to make of this? Well, it’s certainly far stronger than any of the other evidence in Reade’s favor — or in favor of Kavanaugh’s accusers. That said, it’s not unheard-of for people to construct false memories and influence each other, especially in a case that has become the focus on intense publicity. Is it possible, for instance, that Reade originally told LaCasse about what she perceived as sexual harassment by Biden — the neck- and shoulder-touching, the request for her to serve drinks at a fundraiser (and the comment from another aide that the request was due to her attractiveness and “nice legs”) — and recently “jogged her memory” into recalling an account of forcible penetration with fingers? Yes. Yes, it is.

(Oddly, while LaCasse says the disclosure occurred while they were trading “violent stories,” she makes no mention of the fact that at the time Reade was, by her own account, in an extremely abusive marriage.)

I think it’s clearly established at this point that Reade felt she was subjected to a “hostile environment” at Biden’s office. But obviously, sexual assault is a whole other level of offense.

And in that regard, I stand by my view that Reade’s story is extremely implausible, for three reasons:

The alleged assault happened in a public hallway in the Russell Senate Office Building, in what Reade has called a “side area.” No one has yet produced any visual evidence of an area in the hallways of that building secluded enough to afford privacy. (Note that Reade says the assault happened moments after she saw Biden talking to someone when coming up with his gym bag.)

The timing — spring or early summer of 1993 — places this incident in a moment of heightened attention to sexual harassment, both in the culture at large and specifically in Washington, DC. One U.S. Senator (Brock Adams, a Democrat) had just resigned over sexual assault allegations. Another (Bob Packwood, a socially moderate, pro-women’s rights Republican) was embroiled in a massive sexual harassment scandal splattered all over the front pages. This was not a moment when a powerful politician would have felt safe manhandling a female staffer. (I should note that even Packwood was never accused of molesting anyone in a public hallway.)

The actions Reade describes are, frankly, those of a psychopathic sexual predator (e.g. Harvey Weinstein). It absolutely beggars credulity that such a person in a position of power would not leave a long trail of victims. The claims that Biden’s famous “handsiness” and invasions of personal space are indicative of such a pattern are ludicrous. (It’s like saying that a habit of mooching off friends lends credibility to an accusation of armed robbery.)

The last point brings me to the Arc Digital article defending Reade’s credibility by my respected colleague Ben Burgis, who takes issue with some of my assertions. I won’t go over Burgis’s arguments point by point, but this passage in particular is relevant:

I don’t claim that the probability that Reade is telling the truth is too overwhelming for there to be any room for disagreement. I do, however, believe that Biden’s long history of failing to respect women’s boundaries adds at least some additional credibility to the suggestion that he might have done what Reade says he did. Young speaks of Biden “squeezing women’s (and girls’) shoulders, arms or hands, hugging, kissing foreheads, cheeks and hair, and so on” but claims that there was no sexual component to these incidents and even links to a series of images of Biden being “handsy” with men. Her list is importantly incomplete, and her claim that women involved in these incidents did not allege a sexual component is somewhat misleading, as is the series of images supposedly showing that Biden is “equal opportunity” in his handsiness. Caitlyn Caruso claims that Biden put his hand on her thigh at an event at the University of Nevada in 2016. To the best of my knowledge, no one has produced any images of Biden putting his hands on men’s thighs. Or slowly kissing them as they tried to decide whether to ruin their meeting with this powerful and important person by saying anything. Or sniffing their hair.

As it happens, a Google search can in fact produce at least one photo of Biden with his hand on the thigh or at least the leg of a man — New Castle, Delaware police chief Kevin McDerby, at a memorial ceremony in 2010. The chief looks like he’s not thrilled.

The rest of Burgis’s passage refers to Lucy Flores’s allegation, and I think in a highly hyperbolic way. “Slowly kissing them,” for instance, refers to a kiss on the back of Flores’s head while she was preparing to go onstage and speak. Flores also says Biden sniffed her hair after putting his hands on her shoulders. How do we know that? I don’t think Flores is lying, but it’s entirely possible that her account of the incident is exaggerated in her recall (especially since she perceived Biden’s behavior as demeaning).

The other allegations against Biden — forehead-to-forehead touching, hand-squeezing, etc. — all do, in fact, have counterparts involving men. See (again) the “equal opportunity creep” photo gallery. Or see this account from Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart:

On Nov. 20, 2017, before a sold-out crowd at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, N.Y., I conducted a one-on-one conversation with Joe Biden about his new book, “Promise Me, Dad.” You could feel the “Run, Joe! Run!” energy in the theater. Then, as now, many in the audience wanted President Barack Obama’s constitutional wingman to make a run for the Oval Office himself in 2020. Thrilled with how the event went, I asked Biden what he thought after we went backstage. It was there that our close-talking former vice president stepped deep into my personal space, rested his hands on my shoulders, touched his head to mine and said, “You got it, man! You got it, man!” Was I uncomfortable? Sure. Not many people get in my personal space or do so with such gusto. Did I mind? Truth be told, no.

Capehart concludes that women’s experiences are different and that it’s a good thing the stories of women like Flores are now taken seriously because of #MeToo. Maybe. But there are also dangers both in fetishizing female vulnerability and in giving absolute credence to highly subjective personal accounts.

One final point. My position on the Christine Blasey Ford/Brett Kavanaugh story has long been that it’s entirely possible they’re both telling the truth: Ford has retroactively magnified an act of drunken teenage horseplay into an assault with intent to rape, while Kavanaugh simply doesn’t remember it. Is it possible that Reade is telling “her truth,” but Biden did not do what she claims he did? Maybe an “incident with the gym bag” did happen: for instance, she brought the gym bag, and Biden kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her waist. Maybe as time went on, her memory “edited” this into a sexual assault — perhaps magnified by the abuse she apparently suffered in her marriage.

The simple fact is that, with the passage of nearly 30 years — or more than 30 in Kavanaugh’s case — the truth is unknowable barring the emergence of contemporaneous evidence.

And that’s the problem with “Believe Women.”

* Correction: the original version of this article misstated Reade’s current age.