Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who has accused presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden of sexual assault, ripped former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for giving him her presidential endorsement on Tuesday.
“I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016,” she told Fox News. “I voted for her in the primary. I’m a lifelong Democrat. But yet, what I see now is someone enabling a sexual predator and it was my former boss, Joe Biden, who raped me.”
“Hillary Clinton has a history of enabling powerful men to cover up their sexual predatory behaviors and their inappropriate sexual misconduct,” she continued. “We don’t need that for this country. We don’t need that for our new generation coming up that wants institutional rape culture to change.”
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Reade last month accused Biden of assaulting her in a Senate corridor in 1993 while she worked as a staffer. Biden’s campaign has denied the assault.
Reade, in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, called on the former vice president to release his Senate records, currently held by the University of Delaware Library.
“Joe Biden, I want you to release all the personnel records from 1973 to 2009 and be transparent about your office practices,” Reade told the DCNF in a statement directed at Biden. “I would like to hold you accountable for what happened to me, to how your staff protected you and enabled you, bullied me multiple times into silence.”
“You ended my career,” she continued. “You ended my job after you assaulted me. You claim to be the champion of women’s rights, but your public persona does not match your personal actions.” (RELATED: ‘Preposterous On Its Face’: Martha MacCallum Analyzes #MeToo Movement In Light Of Tara Reade)
Clinton joined Biden’s virtual town hall on Tuesday as a “surprise guest,” endorsing the former vice president and praising his work addressing violence against women. Reade’s accusation never came up in their discussion.