Blog No. 258. Joe Biden and the Reade Accusations

In a real sense, the amount of attention being given to allegations of sexual misconduct by Joe Biden twenty-seven years ago is preposterous. It is preposterous in the context of a forthcoming election in which Biden’s opponent will be Donald Trump, a man against whom numerous credible allegations of sexual misconduct have been made but never investigated. It is a part of the Trump mystique that no one seriously disputes the allegations, but no one seems to care. Now along comes Biden, who some would hold to a far different standard.

The media have been criticized by some for being slow to take Reade’s allegation seriously, but even if that is true, they more than made up for it after the story gained critical mass a few weeks ago. On April 12, the Times published a report of an extensive but inconclusive investigation into Ms. Reade’s allegations. After the Times article, media coverage expanded and is now perhaps eclipsed only by stories about the coronavirus pandemic.

There are presently pending various media demands. Many in the media have demanded the release of Biden’s voluminous files at the University of Delaware, as if a search of that haystack of paper and electronic data were likely to produce a needle of guilt. Others have demanded an investigation, as if there were anyone available who might conduct a credible investigation and such an investigation would produce a definitive result. Still others have demanded that Biden step down and decline the party’s nomination, as if there were any chance of his doing so.

Before discussing those demands, I will disclose my own conclusion or, if you prefer, bias: I  believe Joe Biden and I do not believe Tara Reade. I will not burden readers with a detailed critique of Ms. Reade’s credibility. I could not improve on the analysis of Michael J. Stern, a former federal prosecutor of long experience writing in USA Today. Mr. Stern does not claim, nor do I, that Reade’s history of erratic behavior and changing narratives disproves her claim, but he demonstrates that there are grounds for deep skepticism. He rejects, as do I, the view that any claim of sexual assault must be taken as true unless and until the accused can conclusively establish his (or her) innocence.

I also reject comparisons of Biden and Reade with the conflict between Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. To begin with, Dr. Ford had a far more stable career, indeed a distinguished one, with no background in partisan politics and no political axe to grind. She testified under oath and gave testimony that even Kavanaugh’s supporters, including President Trump, acknowledged to have been compelling. It lacked details and direct corroboration, but was highly plausible. It is not Ms. Reade’s fault that she has not had occasion to testify under oath, but she has also not sat for a publicly aired interview. She was reportedly upset with a lack of interview offers, but when an interview was scheduled with a highly respected TV journalist, Chris Wallace, she backed out. A public interview will probably occur at some point. Viewers who are not wedded to a partisan position, one way or the other, will then have a further basis for judging her credibility.

The Kavanaugh confirmation situation was also different in two other respects. First, the FBI was available to investigate. While some Democrats arguably went too far in concluding that Dr. Ford’s disputed testimony was a sufficient ground for rejecting the nomination, my own view was that the confirmation should have been deferred pending a full investigation, an investigation considerably more thorough than the abbreviated inquiry the FBI was permitted to conduct. Needless to say, the FBI has no role to play here.

Perhaps more fundamentally, if Kavanaugh’s nomination had been rejected, there were numerous other potential candidates of comparable qualifications and similar judicial philosophy who could have filled the gap. That is also not the case here. Some have suggested that there are other Democratic candidates who could be tapped, but those candidates are far less fungible than potential justices.

And now, to the demands on Biden and the Democratic Party.

Demands for Release of Biden’s Files at the University of Delaware.

Vice President Biden’s files at the University of Delaware are said to consist of more than 1,800 cartons of papers and 415 gigabytes of electronic records. Biden is reluctant to make public a trove of documents that even without disclosing any evidence of misconduct might be used or misused for political purposes. He has insisted that the files contain no personnel records and would have nothing related to Tara Reade. It is highly likely that Biden is right in that contention, but it is only a contention and unless it can be confirmed in some fashion, the issue will not go away. Some see this as the 2020 equivalent of Hillary Clinton’s “missing emails.” I doubt that it would be quite that because Trump, in light of his highly checkered past and still undisclosed tax returns, is hardly one to argue the point. Nevertheless, that might not stop him, and if he doesn’t pursue the matter, others will. Therefore, it would be in Biden’s interest to resolve the issue through an independent review. But that makes sense only if it can be done expeditiously.

Karen Tumulty, writing in the Washington Post, urged a review and a report by independent researchers but acknowledged that such a process might take weeks or even months. Extending the process over such a prolonged period might simply keep the issue alive, knowing that, at the end, a finding of “nothing there” would not resolve the underlying issue.  A threshold question is whether the examination could be reduced to manageable proportions. Was there no cataloging of any kind at the time of the donation, by subject matter and/or date? If not, Biden may have to stick with his insistence.

Demand that Reade’s Allegation Be Investigated.

Demands for an investigation of the Reade allegation founder on the lack of any credible person or entity to conduct such an investigation. An editorial in the New York Times called for an investigation by the Democratic National Committee. That suggestion, however, borders on the silly. To begin with, it is questionable whether any private investigation would be more thorough than the extensive probe described in the Times’s April 12 article and later supplemented by other media. Even more fundamentally, an inquiry commissioned by the DNC that was inconclusive would probably add fuel to the fire, while one that exonerated Biden would be suspect no matter who had carried out the actual investigation.

Demands that Biden Decline the Nomination.

Calls for Biden to step down or be replaced are typified in columns by Elizabeth Breunig in the New York Times and by Lyz Lenz in the Washington Post. In both cases the writers seem to assume that Biden did in fact assault Tara Reade or, worse yet, not care whether the assault actually happened. Breunig wrote “If you’re lucky when you report your sexual assault, you’ll become known as a person who was sexually assaulted. If you’re unlucky, you’ll become known as a person who lied about being sexually assaulted. It could still go either way for Tara Reade.” Luck? Does it not matter whether the assault occurred? Lenz endorsed the idea of investigating Biden, but made it clear she did not care what the investigation found: “Anyone who has been assaulted knows that there is never a credible enough witness, never enough proof. Biden should be investigated and replaced.” Breunig and Lenz are entitled to their opinions, but the echoes of Madame DeFarge and cries of “Off with their heads” are too close for comfort.

Both Breunig and Lenz also assume that, if Biden stepped down, he would be replaced by a stronger candidate. That, however, is highly doubtful. The only specific name mentioned (by Lenz) was Bernie Sanders, a choice that would almost certainly assure the continued reign of Donald Trump. In my own view, the strongest substitute would be Senator Amy Klobuchar– whom I preferred to Biden. But replacing Biden with Klobuchar would be wrong. It would in effect disenfranchise the millions of Democrats who voted for Biden in the primaries–and who, I am confident, would do so again today, notwithstanding the Reade allegations. It is hard to imagine a more undemocratic action by the Democratic Party.

It is evident that Breunig and Lenz both fear that allowing the Biden nomination will be damaging to feminism and the #MeToo Movement. That speculation, I suggest, is unfounded. On the contrary, those causes are far more likely to suffer lasting damage if they impel an action that rides roughshod over Democratic voters at large–and results in the re-election of Donald Trump.