An attorney named Kelly Klett says that former Senate staffer Tara Reade approached her in 2019 and tried to “plant a story with me” to bolster a later claim against former Vice President Joe Biden.
Reade, who has levelled an escalating series of allegations against Biden, has had her accusations and her credibility intensely scrutinized this week in a pair of news stories that includes a Politico report by Natasha Korecki entitled “‘Manipulative, deceitful, user’: Tara Reade left a trail of aggrieved acquaintances.”
True to its title, the piece features interviews from a raft of embittered acquaintances, including Klett, who is described as “an attorney who rented Reade a room in her home in 2018.”
Reade attorney Douglas Wigdor, when contacted by Korecki, pushed back against many of the claims in the article, saying “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.”
But Klett’s story has a direct bearing on the allegations Reade would begin to level at Biden.
Klett says that at the time she rented the room, Reade bragged about having worked for Biden, and helping him “work on the Violence against Women Act,” but in 2019, after lodging an accusation of non-sexual touching that made her feel “uncomfortable,” Klett says Reade contacted
Reade called Klett in 2019 after first publicly lodging allegations that Biden inappropriately touched her. At the time, Reade did not share details of an assault.“I felt two things when she contacted me: that she was feeling me out to see if I would represent her pro bono. 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,’” Klett said.“I support women who have been assaulted. Unfortunately, I cannot support Tara Reade,” she said. “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.”
In addition to the Politico article, PBS NewsHour released a piece in which 74 former Biden staffers — 62 of them women — were interviewed about Reade’s allegations, and “None of the people interviewed said that they had experienced sexual harassment, assault or misconduct by Biden. All said they never heard any rumors or allegations of Biden engaging in sexual misconduct, until the recent assault allegation made by Tara Reade.”
The interviews include some fairly granular rebuttals of Reade’s claims, with one former staffer who says he worked with Reade reporting that Reade was fired for poor job performance, and others disputing the notion that Reade, or any woman, would be asked to serve drinks:
Further, two men
who worked as junior staffers for Biden said the senator specifically did not want women to serve beverages, like coffee, or perform other menial tasks in his Senate office or on the committees he chaired. Men were typically asked to perform such tasks.“He didn’t want an image of a young woman staffer serving him,” said John Earnhardt, who took over Reade’s duties. Reade left the office in mid-1993, after working there approximately nine months.
Vice President Biden himself has remained steadfast in his denial, as well as in his refusal to attack Reade or her motivations.
During an MSNBC town hall Thursday night, Biden was asked what his message to voters who believe Reade’s allegation would be, and he said “Well, I think they should vote their heart. If they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me. I wouldn’t vote for me if I believe Tara Reade.”
But he combined that sensitivity to Reade’s motivations with an aggressive denial that noted the changes and contradictions to her story, as well as the parade of former staffers backing him up.
“The fact is, look at Tara Reade’s story, her story changes considerably,” Biden said. “I don’t want to question her motive. I don’t want to question anything other than to say the truth matters. This is being vetted. It’s been vetted. They went and people interviewed scores of my employees over my whole career. This is
Watch that clip above via MSNBC.