Tara Reade
Tara Reade
Tara Reade, whose full name is Alexandra Tara Reade, is an American actress, poet, and writer based in California. She was a former intern for Leon Panetta and a former Senate aide for Joe Biden in 1993. In 2020, Reade accused Joe Biden of sexual assault and called for him to resign. [4] [1]
Personal Life
Tara Reade was born in Monterey County and spent most of her childhood i Wisconsin She has a daughter named Michaela. When Tara was 12 years old she qualified for the Junior Olympics in downhill ski racing. At age 17, Tara moved to California to pursue acting as a career. She worked in several commercials and was a dancer in the film La Bamba. [7]
Joe Biden accusation
In April 2019, She accused former Vice President Joe Biden of inappropriate behavior when she worked at his Senate office in 1993. In March 2020 in an interview with Katie Harper, she accused Joe Biden of sexual assault. [3]
Reade's account asserted that Biden pushed her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers.
She explained what happened:
"I want you to take this to Joe, he wants it.
We want you to bring it, hurry.
It was a gym bag.
She called it an athletic bag.
She said he was down towards the Capitol, and he’ll meet you.
I went down, and I was heading down towards there.
He was at first talking to someone.. and then they went away.
We were in like the side, like the side area, and he just said, ‘Hey, come here Tara.' I handed him the thing.
He greeted me.
He remembered my name.
And then we were alone.
It was the strangest thing.
There was no like exchange really.
He just had me up against the wall.
I was wearing like a skirt, a business skirt.
I wasn’t wearing stockings.
It was kind of a hot day that day, and I was wearing heels…I remember I was wearing a blouse, and he just had me up against the wall.
And the wall was cold.
It happened all at once…his hands were on me and underneath my clothes.
Yeah, and 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.
He said several things.
I can’t remember everything he said.
I remember a couple of things.
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 got finished doing what he was doing, and I pulled back and he said, ‘C’mon man, I heard you liked me,’ and it’s that phrase stayed with me.
I kept thinking what I might have said…I can’t remember if he said I thought or heard.
He implied that I had done this.
For me, it was like everything shattered in that moment because I knew we were alone, it was over, right, he wasn’t trying to do anything more, but I looked up to him.
He was my father’s age.
He was this champion of women’s rights in my eyes.
I couldn’t believe it was happening.
It seemed surreal.
I felt sick because when he pulled back he looked annoyed, and he said something else to me that I don’t want to say.
And then he said, I must have looked shocked.
He grabbed me by the shoulders… and he said, ‘You’re OK, you’re fine.’ And then he walked away."
He also followed that by saying "you're nothing to me", a statement which Reade felt was more damaging to her psyche than the alleged assault itself.
After coming forward, the allegations didn't receive much coverage, but ultimately the hashtags #IBelieveTara and #TimesUpBiden started to pick up steam on Twitter, leading to wider exposure.
The accusations were frought with controversy.
Some accused her of waiting until a damaging moment to drop them, she was also accused of doing it as revenge for Bernie Sanders' campaign, others accused her of having ulterior motives after digging up old information stating that she sympathized with Russia. Even Wikipedia has been accused of sanitizing pages regarding the accusations. Reade herself was extremely confused about the event and had a lot of difficulty processing it. [5][6]
"You and I were there, Joe Biden.
Please step forward and be held accountable.
And if you feel that you can address this in a real way, then you know and I know that you should step down.
You should not be running on character for the president of the United States."