Further evidence has corroborated the sexual assault allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden just as the 2020 presidential campaign has heated up — and even the mainstream media has finally started covering the story.
An associate of a former Senate aide to Biden says the woman told her about her allegations of sexual assault against Biden — now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee — in the 1990s.
The account, which was published Monday in Business Insider, comes a little over a month after Tara Reade first accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building when she worked in his office in the spring of 1993.
Biden’s campaign has denied the allegations.
Reade said she had told at least four people about the incident, including her deceased mother and her brother, who has spoken publicly about the matter.
Last week, an unearthed a 1993 video clip that shows a woman Reade says was her mother calling into CNN’s “Larry King Live” about the alleged attack.
In the clip, an unnamed woman from San Luis Obispo, Calif. (where Reade’s mother was living at the time) tells King that her daughter just left Washington, “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.”
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Two other individuals reportedly spoke to The Associated Press on the alleged attack; one said Reade told them about the assault when it happened, while the other said Reade told them in 2007 or 2008 about experiencing sexual harassment from Biden while working in his Senate office.
Now Lynda LaCasse, who was Reade’s neighbor in the 1990s, told Business Insider that Reade told her about the alleged assault around the time it happened. LaCasse said that when they were neighbors in 1995 or 1996, Reade told her “about the senator that she had worked for and he put his hand up her skirt.”
“She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do,” LaCasse sid.
A second woman, Lorraine Sanchez, worked with Reade for California state Sen. Jack O’Connell from 1994 to 1996. Sanchez told Business Insider that Reade said “she had been sexually harassed by her former boss while she was in DC” and was fired for voicing her concerns.
Reade said on Monday that she had been asked by the women not to share their contact information with news organizations. The two came forward on their own.
The Biden campaign declined to comment on the new evidence, and repeated an earlier statement from deputy campaign manager and communications director Kate Bedingfield. She said sexual assault claims should be “diligently reviewed by an independent press,” but what Reade claimed “absolutely did not happen.”
Reade said in past interviews that Biden pushed her against a wall in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building, groped her and penetrated her with his fingers.
She said after telling her supervisors in Biden’s office that she had been sexually harassed by the then-senator, she was fired.
Last spring, eight women, including Reade, came forward with allegations that Biden made them feel uncomfortable with inappropriate displays of affection. Biden acknowledged the complaints and promised to be “more mindful about respecting personal space in the future.”
Reade came forward in March with the additional allegation of assault during a podcast interview with Katie Halper.
The Republican National Committee and other allies of President Donald Trump have been highlighting Reade’s allegations against Biden, though the president has not raised them himself.
Reade is a longtime Democrat who supported both Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the primary. She said she won’t be voting for Trump or Biden in November.
While Reade says Biden raped her, she claims Trump is also a sexist.
“It’s sad statement about our own culture that we are having to choose between two men that have allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment and a history of misogyny,” Reade said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article