Tara Reade’s Corroborators
What do they corroborate?
Tara Reade’s first story was published in April 2019. Then she alleged Biden “touched her several times making her feel uncomfortable” but “didn’t consider the acts toward her sexualization”.
A year later, in March 2020, Reade told Katie Halper’s podcast a dramatically different story, alleging Joe Biden sexually assaulted her.
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.
Naturally, skeptics wonder, “Why did Reade change her story?”. Meanwhile, Tara’s defenders say “the apparent contradiction is no contradiction at all”, arguing that Tara’s story hasn’t changed. “Details have been included now that Reade said she wasn’t comfortable including in the past.”
3 Corroborators
Perhaps the most convincing element of Tara Reade’s case is the fact that, unlike Christine Blasey Ford, Reade told people about her incident when it occurred in 1993. Tara explained on the Katie Halper Show that she shared what happened with a friend, her mother, and her brother.
KATIE: You only shared it with him and your mom and your friend. Right?
TARA: And my brother, yeah, my family. Yeah, my immediate family. But…that incident I never shared [except to immediate family and a friend].
So which of Tara’s stories do her corroborators corroborate? After all, there is a very big difference between uncomfortable touching and sexual assault.
1. Tara’s Mother
Tara’s mother has passed away but a 1993 recording of Tara’s mother calling Larry King Live backs up Tara’s claim that an incident occurred while working for Joe Biden. Tara’s mother told Larry King,
I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington? My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him.
Unfortunately, Tara’s mother only speaks in general terms. What were the “problems” her daughter experienced?
2. Tara’s Friend
A year before Tara alleged Biden assaulted her, Tara spoke with journalist Laura McGann, who recently wrote the following.
Last year, Reade encouraged me to speak with a friend of hers who counseled her through her time in Biden’s office in 1992 and 1993. The friend was clear about what had happened, and what hadn’t.
“On the scale of other things we heard, and I feel ashamed, but it wasn’t that bad. [Biden] never tried to kiss her directly. He never went for one of those touches. It was one of those, ‘sorry you took it that way.’ I know that is very hard to explain,” the friend told me. She went on: “What was creepy was that it was always in front of people.”
A year later, Tara’s friend changed her story.
When I reconnected with the friend I spoke to last year, who had previously told me Biden had not assaulted Reade, she told me a version of the story that matched Reade’s latest account.
Why would Tara’s friend suddenly change her story from “he never went for one of those touches” to sexual assault?
3. Tara’s Brother
McGann says Tara did not originally mention her brother as a corroborator.
When we spoke a year ago, Reade told me the only named sources she could give me were her deceased mother and the friend I spoke to.
Sometime after Reade added her brother as a 3rd corroborator on the Katie Halper show, the Washington Post interviewed Reade’s brother.
Reade’s brother, Collin Moulton, said she told him in 1993 that Biden had behaved inappropriately by touching her neck and shoulders. Their mother urged Reade to contact the police, Moulton said, adding that he felt “ashamed now for not being a better advocate” for his sister. Several days after that interview, he said in a text message that he recalled her telling him that Biden had put his hand “under her clothes.”
I understand trauma and fear may cause a victim to refrain from or delay talking about a sexual assault. That could explain why Tara Reade’s story changed. But I cannot understand why her brother and friend’s memories from 1993 would change too.
What do you think?
