In an interview with the AP, she detailed a 1993 encounter that she says occurred when she was asked by a supervisor to bring Biden his gym bag as he was on his way down to the Senate gymnasium. She says Biden pushed her against a wall in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building, groped her and penetrated her with his fingers.
"He was whispering to me and trying to kiss me at the same time, and he was saying, 'Do you want to go somewhere else?''' she said. "I remember wanting to say stop, but I don't know if I said it out loud or if I just thought it. I was kind of frozen up."
Reade said that she pulled away and Biden looked "shocked and surprised," and replied, "Come on, man, I heard you liked me."
Reade was one of a group of women who complained had at the beginning of the campaign about Biden touching and kissing them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. This was the first time she included details about him penetrating her with his finger.
The story has been dismissed by most mainstream news sources on the basis that no other women have made similar allegations. That's a valid way to determine who to believe in a "he said/she said" situation. A man who imposes himself like this on someone he barely knows normally does the same thing with others.
This is why Bill Clinton's perjury was important in the 1990s. He was being sued by a woman who claimed that he had an employee escort her into his presence where her was waiting with his pants down. This was while he was governor of Arkansas. He did exactly the same thing early in his presidency when he had a White House intern brought into his office. When asked about the White House affair under oath, Clinton lied.
There is no history of Biden fingering other women so I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
But here's the thing. That still leaves all of his other misconduct. The New York Times alluded to this in their first release of a story exonerating Biden. They had this paragraph:
"No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade's allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable."
The story was quickly edited to remove references to Biden's other practices. But these are important.
Consider the two confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh. These took place decades apart but both nominees were almost rejected because a single woman made an accusation. With Kavanaugh the accusation was that he had tried to make out with a girl while drunk in high school. In Thomas's case the accusation was that he made some off-color jokes in front of a woman. There was no touching. In both cases, women who had worked with the nominees came forward and said that they had never seen him act like that. There was no corroborating testimony at all but both men are still plagued by the accusations. A year and a half later, Democrats continue to talk about impeaching Kavanaugh for denying the accusation. (Remember, of the four people who were alleged to have been present, three have denied it and Kavanaugh produced a calendar showing that he was elsewhere nearly every night that Summer.)
Then there's President Trump and the Billy Bush tapes. Shortly before the 2016 election a "hot mic tape" surfaced of Trump saying that he liked to kiss and touch women and they let him because he's rich and famous. Hillary Clinton immediately called on Trump to drop out of the race. Women's groups organized a huge march the day after the inauguration to protest that such a man could be president.
These same women support Joe Biden, even though multiple women have accused him of doing exactly the same thing.
This is selective judgement. If our guy does it, it's just Joe being Joe. If someone from the other side is accused of something, it renders him unfit for office regardless of the lack of proof.
The NYT realized they had been to explicit about forgiving Biden so they swept the proven claims under the rug. Regardless, it's hypocrisy at its worst.
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