- Former Vice President
Joe Biden said Friday that while he welcomes reporting on the subject, the claim that he sexually assaulted a former staffer in 1993 "is simply not true." - The remarks came during a press call with former Obama administration officials.
- Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, defended Biden, saying he had undergone all the "necessary background checks and vetting" to be vice president.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday "unequivocally" denied that he ever assaulted former Senate staffer
Biden's remarks came during a virtual fundraiser with alumni from the Obama administration. Earlier in the event, Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, herself implicitly defended Biden from the charge, saying he was at the top of the list of candidates to be vice president, all of whom were subjected to the "necessary background checks and vetting."
"And guess who was at the top of that list at the end of it? Vice President Joe Biden," Jarrett said.
For his part, Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, claimed to welcome an investigation into Reade's claims. Reade, who worked for Biden's Senate office in 1993, recently claimed that the former vice president sexually assaulted her in a hallway.
"Now," Biden said, "my knowledge that it isn't true does nothing to shake my belief that women have to be able to be heard and that all the claims be taken seriously. It isn't enough just to simply take my word for it and to dismiss it out of hand. Frankly, that shouldn't be enough for anyone, because we know that this sort of approach is exactly how the culture of abuse has been allowed to fester for so long."
Earlier in the day, Biden sent a letter to the Secretary of the Senate "to request your assistance in determining whether 27 years ago a staff member in my United States Senate office filed a complaint alleging sexual harassment."
"I'm heartened to see it, although it's painful sometimes, that by and large journalists are doing what they're supposed to do," Biden said during the fundraiser.
"They're going out there listening to the allegations. They're taking it seriously and they're investigating it. And they're talking with folks who were there at the time, scrutinizing personnel records, examining the evolution of the claims, looking into the culture of our office," Biden continued. "And I'm not concerned about what they might find, because I know the truth of the matter. I know that this claim has no merit."
Friday's developments come after a former neighbor of Reade told Business Insider that, after Biden's accuser recently contacted her, she recalled having a conversation in 1995 or 1996 about the alleged assault.
Speaking Friday night to Democracy Now!, that neighbor, Lynda LaCasse, said that while Biden "looks very believable, too," she "heard Tara a long time ago telling me that [he assaulted her]."
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