By Alexandra Tara Reade

“Lead, follow or get out of the way.” Thomas Paine

The picture above is the last photo of me before moving to Washington D.C. After the article about my experience working as a Joe Biden staffer came out in the media and the pro-Russia blog I wrote, went viral, there was an immediate, brutal fallout attack on me. I received threats on my life via phone and email. A thread started on twitter calling me a traitor. I lost income/freelance work from the negative viral tweets. A writer from the Atlantic and a law professor (former Biden staffer in the White House) Richard Painter teamed up for the hit pieces. The viral articles calling me out as a Russian agent swirled on the internet.

I guess Joe Biden’s campaign figured rather than address what happened, they would just have a supporter call me a Russian agent to knock me out of the conversation. Joe Biden also announced recently that he would have accusers calling him corrupt investigated by the CIA and FBI.

The conversation shifted from Biden’s misconduct to why I support Russia. It became a veiled threat against me that if I spoke further, there would be consequences. Welcome to the switch and bait.

I do support the people of Russia and I think we are blaming a country for internal political problems that Americans need to fix by examining the flaws of the Electoral College. Corporate money donations corruption and voter apathy all played a role in 2016. In other words, America needs to clean up its own democratic mess.

And by the way, America “hacked” and intervened in other countries' elections many times, including Russia in 1996. America can be hypocritical and scream about election interference as it interferes with other countries (Bolivia, Iran, and Venezuela come to mind) or it can examine the election infrastructure and create a better one.

Now, back to my story. What Joe Biden did in his interactions with me is really not much different than what happens in other workplaces. I have not told the whole story of what occurred between Joe Biden and myself. After the threats last time, I will not tell it here either.

I was told back then that if I continued to speak out, I would be “fucking destroyed” …and I was destroyed not once but twice. Perhaps one day there will be a safe way to express what happened. The reason I am writing about it is the hypocrisy that Biden is supposed to be the champion of women’s rights. Also, watch how the media coddles him.

As his employee, I was pushing back against the norm of objectifying and minimizing women at a time when there was no space or support to do that. When I reported Joe Biden’s misconduct towards me ( my mother made me document it, as I was so scared) cost me my job and inability to find more work on the Hill afterward.

I mean, you make an enemy like then, Senator Joe Biden, the Chairman of the Judiciary, then you truly have made an enemy.

Joe Biden has had no consequences for his behavior. Rather, he seems to find it all amusing. His recent jokes and lack of sincerity on the issue illustrates that he is still obtuse to the whole thing.