People who met Biden accuser Tara Reade describe how she used to speak favorably of the vice president and often took advantage of their good will
- More than a dozen former acquaintances relayed encounters with Tara Reade in which she spoke highly of former Vice President Joe Biden, adding that she had lied and took advantage of their goodwill, Politico reported.
- Kelly Klett, an attorney and advocate for domestic abuse victims, formerly rented a room to Reade in 2018, who told her that she was a domestic abuse victim and was taking some time to study for her bar exam.
- Reade graduated from the Seattle University School of Law in 2004, and Klett said Reade would often ask to delay or a pass on her rent, which she had already reduced to $200. Klett eventually asked Reade to leave.
- "I support women who have been assaulted," Klett said. "Unfortunately, I cannot support Tara Reade. When she first contacted me regarding this issue, she could not provide enough credible information. And since that time the story has evolved in the media. I question her motives."
- Reade's attorney Douglas Wigdor told Politico that he thought it was unfair to parallel Reade's lies to her former landlords to the authenticity of her sexual assault allegations.
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Former acquaintances of Joe Biden-accuser Tara Reade described moments when she spoke highly of the former vice president and allegedly took advantage of their goodwill, according to a Politico report.
Politico interviewed more than a dozen people who had prior interactions with Reade, some of whom even knew her under different names like Tara McCabe or Alexandra McCabe. Some of those who knew Reade recalled instances where she took advantage of their goodwill by skipping rent payments and asking to borrow money.
They also said that when she talked of Biden, she spoke highly of him and her position at his office.
First reported by Business Insider, Reade filed a criminal complaint against Biden, accusing him of sexual assault in a 1993 incident when she worked for his Senate office while in her 20s. The former vice president has consistently denied the allegation.
In the complaint, Reade accused Biden of putting his hands under her skirt and penetrating her with his fingers without her consent in a Senate corridor in 1993. A neighbor of Reade's corroborated her story to Business Insider, saying she was told of the alleged incident several years later.
Biden's campaign and several former Senate staffers in Biden's office have denied her allegations, saying they don't remember Reade. Biden has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Kelly Klett, an attorney from whom Reade rented a room in 2018, described Reade with three words: "manipulative, deceitful, user."
"Looking back at it all now, that is exactly how I view her and how I feel about her," she told Politico.
According to Klett, Reade said she had been a victim of domestic abuse and was studying for the bar exam. Reade graduated from Seattle University School of Law in 2004.
Klett told Politico that Reade asked for a break on rent, and Klett reduced her rent payments to $200 and even loaned her law books and materials to help her study for the bar. Klett, a domestic violence victims' advocate, also said Reade name-dropped Biden.
"She spoke to me about Joe Biden and her experience with him. It was positive and in a bragging sense," Klett said, adding that Reade told her that she helped work on the Violence Against Women Act sponsored by Joe Biden in 1994, a year after the alleged assault.
"In the time that she lived with me in close proximity, there was never one allegation against Joe Biden that was disparaging," Klett continued.
Klett said that Reade repeatedly missed her rent payments and asked for more time to pay or a pass, and Klett eventually asked her to leave.
In 2019 after Reade moved out, Klett said that Reade reached back out after she had publicly accused Biden of inappropriately touching her.
"I felt two things when she contacted me — that she was feeling me out to see if I would represent her pro bono," Klett told Politico. "And there was a sense that she was trying to plant a story with me, so she could later say: 'I told the story to this attorney I worked with.'"
"I support women who have been assaulted," Klett said. "Unfortunately, I cannot support Tara Reade."
"When she first contacted me regarding this issue, she could not provide enough credible information," Klett said. "And since that time the story has evolved in the media. I question her motives."
Reade's attorney Douglas Wigdor told Politico that he thought it was unfair to parallel Reade's lies to her former landlords to the authenticity of her sexual assault allegations.
"If the assertion is that someone who has lied to their landlord because they don't have the money to pay rent so then they lied about a sexual assault, I don't think that is fair journalism," Wigdor told Politico.
In a statement to Politico, Wigdor highlighted Reade's willingness to answer "hundreds of questions" about the encounter whereas Biden "has not accounted for his actions other than to say 'it never happened.'"
"Now, she is being asked to account for prior landlord-tenant disputes. Enough is enough," he continued. "This degrading and irrelevant inquisition does not advance the conversation. Instead, it explains why so many women suffer in silence — for fear of having their life turned upside down and questioned."