I’m not writing to get into the specifics of the allegations made against Vice President Biden by Tara Reade. I will stipulate up front that I was approached about them at the beginning of the month by someone who was very concerned because of what Ms. Reade had written about Russia and Vladimir Putin and asked my professional opinion as someone with experience working on influence operations. At that point I was what allegations? I quickly got up to speed and then took a deep dive based on what was being reported at the beginning of the month – the allegations Ms. Reade is making against VP Biden, the allegations that others have made against Ms. Reade, the interviews she was doing and the reporting about the allegations, the stuff she wrote about Russia – and what has been subsequently reported. Based on that review, I have significant questions about her veracity and her objectives, which I reported back to the person who had reached out to me. Basically, I think there are a lot more questions raised by the interviews she’s done, the corroborating witnesses that have come forward, and the motivations of the biggest names promoting this.
But let’s leave that aside. What I want to focus on is what appears to be the endgame, the actual objective, of bringing the allegations. It is clearly not to seek justice through a prosecution. It’s been almost 30 years and it is a she said/he said type of situation with no physical evidence, no solid accounting of day, date, and time, and no direct witnesses. Rather the endgame, the actual strategic objective, is something else. Specifically it is to manipulate the process, including the process of political and campaign reporters and reporting in the US, and that of the campaign itself to dirty up Vice President Biden with enough voters to drive down his positives, drive up his negatives, and ensure that the President is able to eke out another narrow reelection in the Electoral College despite the outcome of the popular vote.
The people pushing Ms. Reade’s allegation are all invested in seeing Vice President Biden losing. Either being forced out as the Democratic nominee to be replaced by their own preference (Senator Sanders) or losing to the President in the general election. And whether they are dead ender supporters of Senator Sanders or alt-right supporters of the President, they all have their own reasons that don’t always align, but their objective here do overlap. One of the key elements of what they are doing is manipulating process in order to purposefully misinform people about the actual process.
Shortly after Ms. Reade made her allegations, the Senate personnel office indicated they had no documentation indicating that she’d made a complaint of any sort against Vice President Biden back in 1993. This had led to a call for Vice President Biden to allow the University of Delaware, which is the official archive for his professional papers from his time in the US Senate; to waive the agreement that keeps that archive sealed until two years after he ceases to be a public figure so that investigative journalists can search for Ms. Reade’s complaint in those archived documents. This is being done under a call for transparency from people who supported candidates who were the least transparent candidates in 2016 and again in 2020. That small inconsistency aside, there are two major problems here. The first is that these types of complaints would not have been forwarded to the person alleged to have committed the harassment or assault. They would have been kept with the Senate personnel office to protect Ms. Reade as the person making the allegation while any investigation was undertaken. So there will not be anything in Vice President Biden’s senatorial archive to find. And this leads to the second problem, which we can see in this screen grab of a now deleted tweet from Katie Halper from this morning:
Notice the goalpost moving. Because the archive is currently still being curated and won’t be complete until 2021 and because this type of document is highly unlikely to be there, even if Vice President Biden were to allow a search of the archive, when nothing is found it will be proof of a conspiracy to protect Vice President Biden and to claim that Ms. Reade’s allegations don’t hold up. Does anyone doubt for a minute that if there was anything on file at the Senate personnel office that would harm Vice President Biden’s electoral chances against the President, that Senator McConnell would not have ensured it had been leaked to the news media already?
This is the same type of bad faith argument that is still being made that somehow the Democratic National Committee, which DOES NOT control how each state runs its primaries or caucuses, and which, to be honest, couldn’t organize a one car funeral if you spotted the DNC the hearse, the driver, the deceased, the mourners, the pallbearers, the eulogist, and the grave diggers, has somehow been manipulating things to ensure that Vice President Biden would become the nominee, including forcing Senator Sanders to endorse him. These are the same people who promote the idea that the Democratic establishment, comprised of neo-liberal elites, somehow fixed all the primaries Vice President Biden won; rather than the reality of significant African American support and turnout. The point of these bad faith arguments are to both abuse the process by lying about what it actually is/how things actually work and to get these lies picked up by others who don’t actually understand how American politics – from campaigns to governing/governance – works and therefore believe these conspiracy theories.
This goalpost moving is also tied to adjustments in those supporting Ms. Reade’s allegation. Just as Katie Halper, who did the big interview with Ms. Reade in March that really got traction for the allegations against Vice President Biden, is now deleting tweets that give away her game, so too do deleted tweets by Nathan J Robinson, who is the Editor of Current Affairs, a major supporter of Senator Sanders, and Briahna Joy Gray’s boss when the latter isn’t working as Senator Sanders’ campaign spokeswoman:
I’m not surprised that Robinson deleted these tweets given that he’s revealed he helped Ms. Reade’s brother adjust his recollection corroborating her allegations. Here too we have an attempt, seemingly successful, to manipulate the reporting process about what Ms. Reade’s brother was actually told in 1993.
One final example: Ms. Reade’s formal complaint filed with the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department. The DC Metropolitan Police Department has moved the case to inactive status and closed their investigation after a little more than two weeks. This has been taken by Ms. Reade’s supporters that the DC police are trying to cover up for Vice President Biden. Which followed on them pointing to her filing the formal complaint as evidence that her allegation against Vice President Biden meant that the assault actually happened in 1993. The reality is much simpler, Ms. Reade refused to name Vice President Biden in her complaint. By not doing so, the Metropolitan Police had little choice but to quickly complete their process and inactivate the investigation. But filing the formal complaint was itself an attempt to abuse the process. Filing the complaint was never intended to achieve some form of justice after all these years, but to abuse the process to harm Vice President Biden’s electoral chances. Filing a false police report is itself a crime. By not naming Vice President Biden in her complaint, Ms. Reade cannot be accused of, nor charged with filing a false police report against him if it turns out she is making the allegation up because he is not actually named in the report. The report was a means to and end, but that end wasn’t for Ms. Reade to get justice, it was to get all the major newspapers and the broadcast and cable networks to report that a formal criminal complaint alleging sexual assault and rape had been filed against Vice President Biden. The reality is that such a complaint was not filed against Vice President Biden. It was filed against “Subject-2”.
Regardless of what happened between Vice President Biden and Ms. Reade in 1993, and, to be honest, there is almost no way for anyone to actually ever be sure what, if anything, happened other than Vice President Biden and Ms. Reade, the purposes of the allegation, how that allegation has been brought to light, and how those pushing the allegation the hardest indicates that the objective is not justice for Tara Reade. Rather, the objective is to abuse calls for transparency, abuse law enforcement process, manipulate the process of political and campaign reporters, and manipulate partisans who do not really understand how any of these processes work to dirty up Vice President Biden. Either to try to get him removed as the Democratic nominee or, should that fail, to ensure that his negatives are driven up among key constituencies so that it is possible for the President to once again lose the popular vote while eking out a narrow reelection victory through the Electoral College.
From beginning to end, this is an influence operation similar to the Uranium-1 allegations, the other allegations from the garbage faux investigative book Clinton Cash, allegations that there were nefarious promises to wealthy malefactors in Secretary Clinton’s speech transcripts, and allegations about her emails from 2016. This influence operation relies on abusing calls for transparency and actual transparency to allow for fishing expeditions to find that one thing that would prove the allegations. And when that one thing is never found, because it never existed to begin with, the absence of evidence will be promoted as proof of both a coverup and a conspiracy to coverup. Ms. Reade’s allegation does not appear to be a search for justice long overdue. Rather it has been weaponized for another purpose: to damage Vice President Biden’s electoral chances. As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about influence operations for my professional work, what I would really like to know is who is really driving it and who is really funding it.
Open thread.
Another Scott
Thanks for this. It’s an excellent summary.
Is there a copy of her actual DC police complaint available online? In the WaPo story you link it gives a couple of sentences, but I haven’t seen the full complaint posted anywhere.
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
Sometimes there is a driver, a director, or a quorum of such. The Arkansas Project, for example. The TEA Party.
Other times, the heaped-up stupidity, misinformation, and self-deception of many independent actors is sufficient to create a narrative mountain, down the sides of which cascade rivers of calumny and accusation.
Al Z.
Makes you wonder what other kind of dirt they’re trying to throw on Biden…
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: I’ve never seen a link to it. Just reporting about it.
Raoul
Semi-relatedly, the past few days on FB has been deeply worrying. The same tactics used in 2016 are happening again. Long time friends of mine who could know better, who are educated and liberal and ok, maybe on the grumpy end of things but not weird, are spreading around the same ‘Nancy Pelosi is a total sellout’ and ‘Biden is a shill for big insurance’ and all the other assorted Dems are abandoning you!’ voter de-motivation, voter alienation bullshit. Vlads guys are working all the same damn memes, but slightly updated.
I think people are falling for this sh*t all over again.
Add in the Biden allegations, and it can be a g-d damned end to functional government for America come November. Quite a feat for the Russians!
Adam L Silverman
@Al Z.: Next week the President will ask Governors Cuomo, Hogan, Murphy, Baker, Wolf, Inslee, Polis, Newsom, and a few others for information on Hunter Biden in exchange for test kits and funding to makeup for budget shortfalls.
WV Blondie
There are plenty of good, common-sense reasons I disbelieve Reade’s account (being roughly contemporaneous with her, having worked on Capitol Hill so very familiar with the sexist culture of the time, etc.).
Nor have I forgotten all the manipulative bullshit and disinformation of the 2016 presidential race – I lost my best friend over that crap.
I’ll watch Uncle Joe on Morning Blow tomorrow, but you nailed the stank factor in this.
Adam L Silverman
@WV Blondie: Thanks for the kind words.
Raven Onthill
I think that, by and large, the main goal has already been achieved: “But Tara Reade” is going to be the “But her emails” of this campaign. While we will probably never know what happened between Reade and Biden, there is extensive evidence of Trump as sexual harasser, if not outright rapist, but the press passes this over.
All this, of course, falls if solid evidence of rapes on Biden’s part is found, but I don’t think it’s going to be found; if it were so, we would have known it by now.
joel hanes
I read today that Reade has edited the story in Medium, retconning it to comport with her current narrative. I have no evidence of that myself, but it would be a thing to watch form
Adam L Silverman
@joel hanes: She’s edited a lot of her allegations and narrative. It appears to be an ongoing thing with her. Goes along with her numerous aliases, the allegations against her for defrauding or attempting to defraud a number of non-profits, a long history of her making dubious allegations of harassment and sexual assault, and abusing the legal system to get out of her debts.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. It looks like the original story was from a version of Business Insider that is behind a paywall. It sounds like the reporter had a conversation with someone at the MPD about it.
Anyway, it’s pretty much moot now, as she reportedly expected from the beginning….
Hmmm…
Cheers,
Scott.
James E Powell
The press/media are going to handle this exactly as they handled all the BS in 2016. Jake Tapper has already made clear that he intends to apply the double standard.
And it might work again. We have so much work to do.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Short of version of this, this the a repeat of Obama’s birth certificate.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
/fixed
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, no TRUE Liberal will have ice cream in their freezer. Checkmate DINOs.
rikyrah
‘ Believe all women?’
I think not.
The pages of history of THIS COUNTRY are littered with the blood of Black men at the end of some White woman’s FALSE accusation ??
Believe all women?
NOPE.
And the thought…
There mere THOUGHT…
That the GOP would have had this in 2008 and 2012 and NOT USED IT?
PHUCK OUTTA HERE.
SectionH
Thank you, Adam.
rikyrah
And the thought….that she could file a police report and NOT ACTUALLY NAME THE PERSON WHO SUPPOSEDLY ATTACKED HER
That is as peak Karen as Karen gets.
It would never occur to me, as a Black woman, that if I went to a police station, to use up their time about filing a complaint, that I could walk out of there without ACTUALLY putting that person’s name in the complaint.
The thought that the police would take me seriously when I told that I wouldn’t actually put that person’s name in the complaint?
Lips so pursed.
rikyrah
Thanks for the post, Silverman.
artem1s
Great examination of the issue. Thanks.
The goal now is to get the media to force the Biden campaign to talk about it. once they have won that battle it will be non-stop harassment. Why didn’t he deny it sooner? Why doesn’t he apologize? Why doesn’t he produce evidence that he didn’t do it? Why doesn’t he support MeToo? Why why why why why…. no answer will be good enough. but her emails all over again.
It was going to happen no matter who the candidate was. I’m sick to the teeth of the double standard that is applied to Democratic leaders. This is the thing I fear we will never be able to fix…. the rejection of competence and decency just to appease the indecent and incompetent.
piratedan
there are multiple things about this that piss me off:
first and foremost how this makes it that much more difficult for anyone who’s actually suffered harassment and abuse because of their gender to come forward because some selfish and amoralistic asshats have decided to weaponize this process. So, thank you for giving cover to yet another generation of misogynistic crap to perpetuate itself.
second, anyone with a set of firing synapses should have twigged to the timing of this and taken it as the potential shit-flinging attempt it was known/proven to be
thirdly, that our media lends any credence to this shows that they are beholden to their own tropes and relentlessly operate in bad faith at the merest glimmer of an opportunity.
fourthly, that someone, anyone on the far left who still believes in the fairy tale that they would finally be able to leverage something like this into either ascendancy or power if they could finally prove that the moderates are just as bad as the conservatives, thus justifying their consuming hatred for them.
fifth and foremost, that if we do finally discover who is doing this to our political process, gets one in the back of the skull and ends up in some remote swampland to support the local ecology.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: I think it is, or perhaps should be, less believe all women and more all women have the right to be heard and their claims properly investigated. Not that they should be believed unconditionally. But I’m burdened with a Y chromosome, so what do I know.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: My understanding is that a group of Karens is called a privilege.
HumboldtBlue
You motherfuckers are chock full of joy on a Thursday night.
Afro Beat loses a pioneer.
Fela once stated that, “Without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat.”
ema
Rather it has been weaponized for another purpose: to damage Vice President Biden’s electoral chances.
In your professional opinion, what is an effective counter to this? If it were me I would go with polite, relentless mockery – thank the media/reporters for their concern, and tireless pursuit of the truth, about the many alleged sexual assault victims of impeached public servant Trump, and keep discussing that, and only that, no matter what.
PeakVT
It would be irresponsible not to speculate! Seriously, though, I don’t see a reason to think the players have changed substantially over the past 4 years. The pro-Trump crowd (domestic elite, Putin, Netanyahu, MBS) have largely gotten what they want, so which of them is directly behind this particular attack doesn’t strike me as immediately important. The x-factor of COVID-19 has only exacerbated America’s self-induced failings, which suits China just fine and apparently doesn’t bother anyone else who might meddle. There’s no reason for various actors not to try the 2016 strategy and tactics again, since the media landscape hasn’t changed much either.
CaseyL
The more I hear about Reade, the more she reminds me of someone who was my best friend in high school: a compulsive, pathological liar who did me enormous damage before I realized what she was.
The same sorts of things: start out with a vague accusation that makes her look like a victim, then start embellishing it and making it more serious, drawing in a post facto necessity for there to have been a planned coverup when no evidence exists that the thing ever actually happened. (In my case, I wound up walking away from people who were friends of mine when Jodie said they had always hated her and did things to make her look bad.)
Involve more and more people as your advocates, so that they keep supporting you, compromising themselves so they have to keep supporting you. (Sunk costs and all that.) Also make them distrustful of any information that doesn’t come from you.
This fits in with Reade’s history of being a manipulative liar, and a fabulist at inventing relationships with important people that never happened – it even fits in with her infatuation with Putin: an imaginary boyfriend who is very rich, powerful and famous. (No, she never invented having a relationship with him, not that I know of, but from all accounts was obsessed with him.)
Reade is almost certainly a tool of various Interested Parties, but for herself, it’s mostly about making herself seem connected, and important, and a holder of secret knowledge. I doubt she cares at all what the wider effects of her actions are; Biden is probably not even “real” to her.
The one good thing for me that came out going through all that in high school was (is) that I am utterly immune to the kinds of psychological manipulations that lead people into joining cults. Much the same dynamics at play. So it makes sense that the same people who fed on this shit in 2016 will do so again: they’re hardwired to do so.
Colleeniem
The whole thing is of a piece that’s been running through my mind for years now…how fucking gullible do they think we are? Just because political pundits can wake up each morning with at peak tabula rasa, doesn’t mean we do. They have such contempt for us, these vaunted chattering classes.
Gaardian
I mean the culprit to me seems obvious. There’s few people/orgs that have the kind of traction on the far left and the alt right, have the organization and the research to pull it off. Ms. Reade is financially and legally troubled, and ripe for recruitment from someone trying to manufacture dirt on Biden. Ms. Reade’s fawning posts on Putin were probably the proof that her handlers required to show that she’s loyal enough for whatever smear/info op they’re pushing. This whole thing reeks of the GRU.
Putin’s right to be worried. If Biden takes office, the loyal US intel folks are going to lobby hard for retaliation, and Putin is weaker domestically right now than he’s been in years. The Ukraine/Hunter Biden stuff didn’t work out because Trump is a bumbling imbecile. This is likely plan B, and not a great one at that. Unfortunately the US media learned nothing from 2016, and is running with this. It would be unbelievable if I hadn’t already lived through this four years ago.
cmr114
Someone has found a “memoir” (or creepy novel more like) written by Reade’s father in 1998, and it contains a scene that matches details of Reade’s (most recent) narrative of the assault.
https://twitter.com/SallyAlbright/status/1255753538518515717?s=20
Adam L Silverman
@ema: If I was advising the Biden campaign, I would have the oppo researchers and the Red Teamers doing a deep, deep dive into Ms. Reade. Full workup as if she was a candidate including a full financial review and a complete build out of her social network. I’d then work the network analysis to determine where the funding was coming from and that will tell me who to direct the information counter fire at.
Colleeniem
@Adam L Silverman: Ha! That is amazing.
@ema: Yes, I agree.
Jackie
I saw – didn’t read – she declined to do a FOX interview regarding this?
ema
@Adam L Silverman:
Thank you.
Adam L Silverman
burnspbesq
My bottom line on this: I don’t care. The truth or falsity of Reade’s allegations doesn’t matter, even a little bit. I’m still voting for Biden, because the alternative is four more years of Trump.
if that makes me a horrible person, so be it.
Eyes on the ball, y’all.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
lips continue to be pursed.
CaseyL
As we watch the Wurlitzer swing into action, is there anything we can do about it?
Hillary testifying to Congress for 11 hours didn’t stop the Benghazi smears; Uranium-1 being repeatedly debunked didn’t stop that smear; and don’t even get me started on the emails. Too many people were happy to repeat the bullshit.
The same thing is going to happen now, so it would be nice to know if anyone has any ideas how to combat it.
ETA: Other than telling anyone we talk to about it that it’s pure nonsense and a ploy to destroy Biden’s candidacy the same way they destroyed Hillary’s.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: I have a lot of questions about Halper’s, Grim’s, and Robinson’s roles in all of this.
Adam L Silverman
@CaseyL: Brazening it out has worked for both the President and Senator Sanders. Just refuse to answer and provide any requested information/documentation beyond the initial statement. When the question is repeated, simply reply with “we’ve already addressed this” and then just go on and talk about whatever you want to talk about. Senator Sanders has done this with his taxes in both 2016 and 2020 and his post heart attack medical records in late 2019 and early 2020.
RinaX
@burnspbesq:
Honestly? That was my attitude as well. To paraphrase Nick Fury from the first Avengers movie, they have made me very desperate.
Then I realized how they were using this as a cudgel against female politicians, which makes things even more dire. I’m really concerned that the talking heads will continue dancing around her credibility issues and not give her account the scrutiny it deserves.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: It’ll be interesting how he handles it in the morning.
‘night all.
Wash your hands!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: I’ll be curious to see if Wallace brings up that tweet– he’s somewhat unpredictable.
smintheus
@CaseyL: Yes, it seems plain that Reade’s endgame is that she gets attention she craves. She may also expect that she’ll be able to climb aboard the gravey train.
I sometimes wonder whether I’m the only person in American who can spot the crazy eyes. Could Tara Reade possibly look more like a nut job?
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Chris Wallace? Is he doing a report on this or something?
Captain C
Serious question: how many of those on the Loud Online Left who have already decided that Biden’s a horrible rapist, period, and therefore drop out and go away even in the face of the current evidence that this is a con job (and are at least hoping and hinting that Bernie should be installed as the candidate) sang the same tune when Julian Assange was faced with multiple rape allegations that were at least credible enough for charges to be filed?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: I had seen earlier that she was going on his show Sunday, but google suggests it’s still a rumor
Adam L Silverman
@Captain C: From reading tweets – a lot. The good news though is only 10% of Americans are on/use twitter. The even better news is that a lot of these accounts are bots and trolls, both domestic and foreign. And among the real folks and trolls, a lot of them were never going to either vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who he or she was or nor vote at all.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Now I’m tracking.
Mary G
@Gaardian:
Amen, brother.
Gaardian
If I was messaging for Biden, I would a) deny it b) talk about how all women have the right to be heard and in a he said she said situation like this both parties have their credibility examined and c) say that he’s confident that in this case which has already been looked at by law enforcement and multiple press outlets and found to be baseless he’s confident of the answer d) when pressed about releasing his Senate papers he say that no one had ever been asked to do this before but should pledge to do so if Trump releases his tax returns and everything that has been subpoenaed from him by congress and the multiple court cases he’s involved in then he can e) pivot to the new found concern about women and Presidential candidates and President Trump’s record on sexual assault. “When we talk about examining these kinds of cases, I would love to see both sides held to the same standard of investigation.”. He can talk about how Me Too has caused him to do some work, work he’s still doing, on his interactions with women etc. Going on with Wallace for this feels like a mistake. I really hope it’s not.
Dmbeaster
@cmr114: Wow. Since she has such a history of being both a creepy and stupid liar, it makes sense she would borrow this narrative for her lies.
Adam’s post only partly summarizes the research on her history of weird behavior. Having read a lot of this now, my opinion went from maybe something handsy happened to she is a manipulative liar, and its total crap. Also, I am shocked by the machinations of her supporters to manipulate stories and witnesses to make the story more credible.
As a trial lawyer, I can tell you endless stories about the ways in which witness recollections can be shaped by how they are interviewed. I call it “poisoning the well.” That has clearly been happening here as Reade’s supporters gleefully seek to weaponize the story. For Reade, telling this lie is the most exciting thing she has ever experienced, and liars like her LOVE the thrill of the successful lie.
I have been troubled by this because I tend to think most of these old accussations of male pig behavior are at least partially accurate. But this does seem to be the rare case where it is a despicable lie.
Adam L Silverman
@Gaardian: He/his campaign has done a, b, and c. Surrogates have done d and e.
Adam L Silverman
@Dmbeaster: No arguments. My purpose in the post wasn’t to do a recounting and debunking. Rather it was to look at what the point of the influence op is.
Steeplejack (phone)
@HumboldtBlue:
Excellent!
marv
Really grateful to read this. I mean the information, detail, reasoning, etc.
Darkrose
@Captain C: When #DropOutBiden first started trending on Twitter last month, I followed links back to Halper. Someone in the reply thread to the first post about Reade said that this was obviously true—as opposed to the clearly fake Assange charges.
feebog
The third arbitration case I heard when I started my practice was a bus driver who was fired after an accusation of sexual assault. Not going to get into all the details but the accuser was a developmentally disabled young woman. It was a tricky case due to the woman’s disability, but I sustained the grievance and brought the driver back to work; mainly because the woman recanted her story and the reinstated it. I have investigated, litigated and adjudged numerous sexual harassment cases over my career, which is closing in on 50 years. Ms. Reade’s changing stories seriously damage her credibility.
ruemara
I feel deep physical pain at what they’re doing. I want to believe Reade, because there are ways men used to behave in even a “professional” setting that would count as outright sexual assault now, but was considered aggressively flirtatious. Biden has been too much of a toucher, but I’ve never gotten that sort of vibe off him of forcing anything. But this… this will taint the waters for any person who is assaulted by a person of even marginal political standing. She could have a legitimate complaint. She could be quite mentally unwell & easily manipulated. She could be actively trying to put Sanders back in as the nom. That’s almost something I could be angry about but not hate them if this was back when he was planning to get into the race. She deliberately waited until now. Worse, these people don’t give a fucking damn about the thousands their ratfucking in 2016 caused to be killed. They don’t give a damn about any of the supposed causes they claim they do. Nothing they’ve done has been in service to furthering any progress. Biden losing and more importantly, tanking chances of taking the Senate & keeping the House – that could kill another 100k more Americans and who knows how many more worldwide. I despise these people more than I do Trumpers.
@Captain C: I can answer. Zero. Those were slanders of a brave truthteller. Never mind that court conviction of actual rape.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is what was in the NYTimes..
smike
@Gaardian:
I think this is a good move: “I will grant access to the material as soon as Trump releases his tax records and ceases to block all subpoenas.”
Anathema Device
@smintheus: Really? You’re going for the ‘she looks like a liar’ defence? How progressive of you
My husband was berating me earlier for pointing out the extreme vagueness of her allegations as to time and place (never mind the changing nature of those allegations), saying that focussing on such matters would disqualify any number of #metoo related claims, like those against Harvey Weinstein, or Kavanaugh.
I vainly tried to point out that in Weinstein’s case, there were many women all making similar allegations, and in Kavanaugh’s, a great deal of corroborative evidence and several untainted witnesses who could verify Blasey Ford’s distress at the time, and Kavanaugh’s disgusting habits.
In Reade’s case, we only have her (shifting) word for it. Her witnesses have been interfered with, and her corroboration is extremely weak and non-specific. If Biden is to have a fair hearing, then asking pointed questions about exactly where this is supposed to have happened, and when (for god’s sake, can we narrow it down to a month at least? How are his private files going to help either side if that can’t be done?) He’s being asked to prove a negative when the case for a positive finding is based on smoke.
It’s also pertinent to ask about her honesty and history because she’s unique in making such a serious allegation against Biden. It’s fair to look at this as if we were jurors in a civil trial, and apply a ‘on the balance of probabilities’ standard to her allegation.
I’m female, I’ve been assaulted and creeped on by men, and I don’t believe her. Not because of the vague details of when and where the alleged assault took place, not the changing story about the alleged assault and her leaving the position, not the lack of any female manager being able to verify her formal complaint, not her lack of record keeping, not the witness manipulation, not the past financial dishonesty, not the editing of her blog posts, not the other assault allegations she’s made against various men (including her father, and husband), not her about face regarding Biden’s honesty and Putin’s sexiness, and not the weirdness of a police report that names no one as her attacker.
It’s because of all of those things together. One is not necessarily dispositive, but all of them? Come on – listen to women, but don’t be taken in by a grifter.
Delk
Jeez. All this fucking work and all they really had to do was show up and vote for Bernie.
And, exactly what kind of freezer should Nancy have?
Anya
This story causes me a great deal of heartache. I always want to believe women because women rarely throw around false accusations. Sadly some people use accusations of rape as revenge like this woman
I don’t know if Reade is motivated by attention or she’s politically motivated but something about her ever changing stories and how she went about it doesn’t ring true.
Ruth Marcus at Washington Post had a column titled: The new Tara Reade revelations make it imperative that Biden address the allegations directly. I’ve listened to the woman’s call-in with Larry King (can anyone verify she’s her mother?) but it doesn’t add anything to the story. If that caller was her mother, then the call doesn’t actually support her accusation of rape/sexual assault. It sounded like the mother was complaining about a senator’s staff and how they treated her daughter but out of respect for the senator, the daughter didn’t want to go public.
Honestly, I am not sure what these people heard on that call. What am I missing?
I am not even a Biden fan. I feel like Dem voters chose him for me and I have to respect that choice. I never wanted him as our nominee. I am not a ride or die supporter of his and I would be yelling about him dropping out if this had semblance of credibility.
ruemara
@Delk: Voting is too establishment and petite bourgeois & that’s a trick question because Pelosi should be humble in sackcloth dresses while subsisting on the charitable donations of ice water like a true public servant like Bernie, who doesn’t even own an iron and lives in 1 of 3 minuscule hermit’s shacks.
hervevillechaizelounge
@Adam L Silverman:
a group of Karens is called a privilege
This is fucking brilliant.
Re: Reade, I once had a friend who was a cancer faker so I have some experience in this area. I expect her next move will be to subtly ratchet up the severity of the claims, possibly claiming he damaged her vagina.
If she were paid by Putin how would the mechanics work? Bank transfer through a middleman? Cash in an envelope? 200K in Amazon gift cards?
Cathie from Canada
“Well, those Swiftboat sailors knew SOMETHING bad about Kerry or they wouldn’t be speaking out…”
“Well, that Michelle Obama said SOMETHING bad about white people because the tape showed it …”
“Well, that Hillary Clinton did SOMETHING bad with her email server or she wouldn’t have lost all those emails…”
“Well, that Joe Biden must have done SOMETHING bad to that woman or she wouldn’t be speaking out now…”
Such a tried and true Republican tactic, and the American public falls for it every time. Its Lucy and the football.
Anya
@Captain C: speaking of the loud online left, I didn’t really like people who were calling for Chris Hayes’ firing because he did a segment that was sympathetic to Tara Reade. I don’t mind people challenging his coverage and calling him out but calling for his resignation is wild.
Anya
@Anathema Device: Thank you! That’s exactly where I stand.
SectionH
@burnspbesq: of course it doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you someone with a working Shit Detector.
Mandalay
There are a couple of issues indirectly arising from this:
Anathema Device
@Mandalay: Trump has already said it might be a false accusation, because he himself has faced a number of false accusations. So basically, setting things up so that if the left pushes on Trump’s wrongdoing, he’ll unleash the Death Star on Biden.
Your second point doesn’t follow at all, and I can’t see the women who will likely work with him, standing for that at *all*. If they believe BIden is innocent, then why the hell would they not fight for justice if they believe another man is guilty?
Yutsano
@Mandalay:
[CITATION NEEDED]
Hermann Fegelein
@Raoul: Biden *is* a shill for big insurance and even more for banks. And the United States might well collapse under a Biden presidency due to him favoring the interests of Republicans over the welfare of the country.
But, you know, what are you going to do? The US might easily fail to last until June 2021 under a reelected Trump. The best Republican officeholder (or voter) is infinitely worse than Biden. I mean. The best Republican officeholder is infinitely worse than *Bloomberg.
Mandalay
@Anathema Device:
That’s not the issue. The problem is their credibility is shot, and the public won’t take them seriously.
For example, Gillibrand pronounced Al Franken guilty and demanded he leave the Senate before there was even an investigation! But now she announces that Biden is innocent before he has even said a word about the allegations against him! Her obvious hypocrisy has made her a ridiculous figure. She has no credibility.
Yutsano
@Hermann Fegelein: Okay who left out the sea lion chow?
PJ
@Mandalay: he denied the allegations. There isn’t much more he can do, except tear into Reade’s lack of credibility, which is not something he wants to do. Gillibrand fucked up with Franken, thinking it would help her in the primary, but there has been no solid evidence backing Reade’s claim, and the evidence we have suggests a grievance with Biden’s staff, but not Biden himself, whom she “respected” and continued to praise until last year.
SectionH
@Anathema Device:
Brachiator
I have not followed this at all. When it came up, I would note that those most knowledgeable saw it as a deliberate attempt to smear Biden.
But I see it ramping up big time in an attempt to do the maximum damage to Biden. The common theme that I have seen in just the past few days, is that the claims are “credible,” that the story about the incident were told to people at the time, and that Biden’s response has been “insufficient.”
Pundits are framing it as a political issue, insuring that, like Clinton’s emails, it can become a permanent part of the campaign and inevitably brought up at a debate, so that reporters can debate how Biden “handled” the issue. Which, of course, will be “poorly.”
Yep. It’s despicable. But this is how things work in the Age of Trump.
CarolDuhart2
I doubt there will be any debates this year. For one thing, the social distancing thing makes that unlikely. Another is Trump’s clear decline and inability to follow a script very long, and also Trump needs an audience of some kind-reporters, supporters, whatever. There would be no audience at any debate that’s scheduled, and would his handlers trust him at a Skype one?
The optimist in me thinks this could fade in a few weeks. Without any other accusers, and without real evidence, there isn’t that much, and corona is the story of the year.
Amir Khalid
@CarolDuhart2:
I think that, with judicious prodding, getting Trump to agree to a debate despite his handlers’ concerns should be doable.
Morzer
I think it’s quite clear that Tara Reade is a psychologically troubled star fucker who saw a chance to get some attention by going after Biden. She’s obviously been desperate for that attention for some time now, as her Twitter creeping reveals. I am not sure anyone actually planned this thing, but the Bernie Dead-enders saw a chance of reviving their cult leader’s latest failed primary run and so gave Reade enough help and contacts that it has managed to limp off the ground. I don’t think it will fly too far, because there’s obviously no evidence and unless Reade is going to invent some even more wild claims the media will get bored fairly soon.
Baud
I think the phrase “journalistic extortion” should be used for reporters who threaten to slander Biden unless he opens up his private papers.
AxelFoley
@rikyrah:
This. Straight up this.
Baud
@Brachiator:
Agree. That’s the playbook. But this time we’re ready for it. There is already more pushback than you saw in 2016.
Let’s stop talking about how this will galvanize our enemies and start talking about how this will galvanized us.
JPL
@Baud: Wow a Cheerleader in Chief.
Biff Baxter
Dear God, Mika!!! You’re leaving out so much backstory and behind the scenes machinations that casts doubts on her credibility.
Msb
Thanks for this.
SFAW
I think this has been covered, but I want to make sure I’m getting the sort-of chronology correct, vis-a-vis the “accusations”:
Initially, Reade talked about harassment and/or “inappropriate touching”; next it became a non-specific “sexual assault”; it has now become rape.
Is that the sequence? Or have I added something/left something out/mis-characterized things?
trnc
@burnspbesq:
What’s interesting is that the latest claim of vaginal penetration with his fingers is literally another way of saying “Grab ’em by the pussy,” so even if I thought it was true (I don’t), I’m still left with the possibility that Biden did something that DT has confessed to on tape, so why would it sway anyone from Biden to DT.
Also, I can’t help by notice the fox news crowd keeps screaming about the hypocrisy of Blasey Ford vs Reade, and that, unfortunately, Biden defenders tend to get caught up in that discussion rather than pointing out DT’s confession. No one will ever convince a dead ender that Blasey Ford’s case was consistent or that witnesses were not interviewed who should have been.
SFAW
@trnc:
The goal is not to sway people TO the Murderer-in-Chief, it’s to sway people AWAY from Biden. Whether that’s to somehow magically get Bernie the nom, or suppress the Biden November turnout, or some other reason, is immaterial.
It’s the same reason the Party of Traitors held interminable Benghazi “investigations.” Hillary was the most-admired woman in surveys during the early 2010s; the Party of Traitors realized they had to increase her negatives, and thus latched onto Benghazi as the means to do that. This thing is not very different from that
ETA: Brachiator’s comment @ 80 is more eloquent than mine.
johnnybuck
@Baud: Goddamn right
Bex
Does anyone believe that Obama’s campaign wouldn’t have vetted Biden within an inch of his life?
Cheryl Rofer
Late to this thread, but here’s another example of moving on and ignoring the smears: Ralph Northam. He’s weathered the accusations of blackface by hanging in and being governor.
I’m not giving a pass to the blackface thing, which could easily be true in Virginia. But he’s turning Virginia blue.
And I agree with burnspesq: We have one job. Eyes on the ball.
kindness
I can understand the motives of Republicans pushing the story. They are assholes but they are playing to their team. The motives of the BernieBros though? They might be playing to Bernie’s team but they are being traitors to the Democratic Party. And I mean that in a treason way (not national security treason, party treason). Those people need to be called out so we know who they are and can add grains of salt to anything they say going forward.
John
Fiona Hill warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was attacking our elections. She reiterated that Putin was deliberately pitting the extremes of American society against the great middle to tear us apart and destroy democracy. When asked to speculate on why the Russians are backing both Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, she said, “What the Russians are looking for is the two candidates who are kind of the polar opposites… So that it exacerbates… the polarization in the country.”
laura
If this Tara Reade didn’t exist, there would be someone else just as deliberately sketchy and the media would run to cover that shiny object/squirrel. Getting all het up about how “it’s out there.” And yet, there’s a creep sex pest long time pal of Jeffery Epstein who’s been open about his habits with women and girls – underage girls, and a fascination with his daughter that can be seen from outerspace. Then there’s the credible allegations of sexual assault and actual attempts to hold him accountable in civil court. For reasons unknown to me, that doesn’t seem to be a story that merits in depth coverage. I call bullshit on this whole thing.
There’s no way, no chance this wouldn’t have been discovered when Biden was vetted for Veep – sloppy work has never been attributed to Obama.
chopper
@Mandalay:
“inoculating trump” seems to be a strange goal, since his sexual harassment/assault accusations aren’t going to be the issue voters were going to be judging him on this fall. unless something was going to be unsealed soon?
Geminid
@kindness: The people pushing this story are associated with Sanders, but some of them were leftists long before Sanders ran in 2016, and will will try to undermine the Democratic party long after Sanders is off the scene. Harry Truman contended with their forebears when Henry Wallace ran in 1948.
Omnes Omnibus
@kindness: What makes you think that Bernie Bros have any interest in benefiting the Democratic Party.*
*Pace Betty Cracker. I make a clear delineation between Democrats who supported Sanders as a candidate in the Democratic Primaries in 2016 and 2020 and Bernie Bros.
Geminid
@Cheryl Rofer: I’m guessing that whoever edited Northam’s med-school yearbook knows the truth of the provenance of the blackfsce photo. If he rememembers. Northam says he never saw the yearbook, that he had left to start his military medical tour when it came out, and that he can’t honestly say the photo was of him. He’s kind of a boy scout, basically honest, and I believe him, but I never thought he should resign even if the photo was of him. One aspect of the story is clear, though. The photo was discovered and publicized by antiabortion zealots who were incensed, or pretended to be, about Northam’s clinical description of what is done when unviable babies with grave and severe birth defects are born. He was speaking about legislation concerning third trimester abortion.
Betty
@Cathie from Canada: Go back to Nixon for the start of the dirty tricks.
Another Scott
@hervevillechaizelounge: Your comment just triggered a memory of an old Emergency! episode. An old guy with a limp claimed that their truck side swiped him and left him injured in a sidewalk as they were driving to a call. He was taken to a hospital, they found signs of a serious back injury but John and Roy had no recollection of anything like that happening.
[ Insert plot twists and turns here ]
Turns out, the guy admitted to being a serial grifter. Yes, he had a back injury, but he was able to fake injuries using it and had gotten damages out of it several times before. When asked why he did it, he said something like, “I saw the truck coming, and I just couldn’t resist! Sorry!”
:-/
Hmmm…
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Anathema Device: Excellent comment.
And genius ‘nym. :-D
Cheers,
Scott.
Cheryl Rofer
@Geminid: I’m not looking to argue the validity of the charges against Northam. Rather, I’m making a parallel to what is being done to Biden:
But Northam broke that up by moving on, just as Biden should. The media eventually tire of the story, although it will be more difficult at the presidential level.
J R in WV
Well done piece Adam, as usual.
Thanks for rounding up the disparate bits and bites of the story.
And thanks to @John: who quoted Fiona Hill’s insightful remarks about the GRU’s activities in American elections.
This goes way back in American Politics, perhaps the worst and most successful example was against John Kerry, who fought bravely in his brown river war, opposed that war, and was attacked by fat Republicans wearing bandaids with purple hearts on them.
I mean, Really People?? Those folks are not fit to clean Kerry’s boots! As brave as cadet bone-spurs!!
In the past, candidates have been accused of everything one can think of, and sometimes it works for their opponent, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Bill Arnold
@Anathema Device:
The Death Star needs to be destroyed, IMO. By investigative surrogates, but thoroughly. That includes everyone involved in this influence operation. If that includes state actors, them too. (Various state actors who might plausibly be involved are a lot more fragile politically than they think they are.)
Also, weaponizing #MeToo in a crass and stupid right-wing political influence operation cannot be forgiven. (I count Nathan J. Robinson and some of the others as objectively right-wing.)
(If there are nested wheels involved and e.g. at some level of wheel the idiocy is intentional, OK for that wheel.)
Dmbeaster
@Adam L Silverman: I understood that, which was an interesting new take on this. The sudden Putin love by Reade, and then scrubbing it, was just weird.
The details about Reade and the manipulation of this story by its promoters are revealing. There is a reason why major media has not bit on this story.
Dmbeaster
@Adam L Silverman: I only said partially for the benefit of those readers who have not yet done the deep dive about Reade and this story.
ruemara
@SFAW: That’s the sequence.
dopey-o
Has anyone suggested that Reads re-file the police report and specifically name Biden?
Second question: 1993 – the time of Biden’s alleged assault – came close on the heels of the Anita Hill accusations against Clarence Thomas. After taking so much heat for bungling the investigation into Hill’s charges, why would Biden engage in such reckless behavior?
Eric
“It’s been almost 30 years and it is a she said/he said type of situation with no physical evidence, no solid accounting of day, date, and time, and no direct witnesses.”
It is ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE you can write this and not once mention how the Democrats treated Brett Kavanaugh with ZERO evidence. Nada. Nothing.
Eric
@Anathema Device: “Kavanaugh’s, a great deal of corroborative evidence and several untainted witnesses who could verify Blasey Ford’s distress at the time”
This is some grade-A B.S. There were exactly NO corroborating witnesses to either Kavanaugh’s crime or Ford’s state of mind. For heaven’s sake, even her own family knew it was a lie and refused to talk to the press during the whole spectacle. Her own family!
Meanwhile, Tara Reade has four living contemporaneous collaborating witnesses not counting her mother who called Larry King to say her daughter was attacked by a “prominent Senator.”
It would be more honest for you to say “believe all women, unless it’s a Democrat.”
Another Scott
@Eric: Put a little more effort into your trolling next time.
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Aballoon-juice.com+kavanaugh+hearing
HTH!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Anathema Device
@Eric:
“Yes, hello. I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington?” she asks. “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.”
Larry King responds: “In other words, she had a story to tell but out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?”
“That’s true,” the caller says.”
Where does she say ‘attack’? (Not to mention the fact there are 100 senators and no one other than Reade has claimed this is her mother. Reade’s honesty is not something I would go to the guillotine for.)
Also
5 Main Reasons Why Fmr Fed Prosecutors Say Christine Ford’s Allegation Is Credible
You’re clearly this type of critical thinker:
https://twitter.com/LegionRanger/status/1256096068577656832
And just as honest.
roscoeroscoe
@Biff Baxter: I know right? That interview was pathetic
Dona Ogilvie-McDermott
@Mary G: I wish he was…..To me he is an evil genius….manipulative and cunning.
Dona Ogilvie-McDermott
@piratedan: wow this is so the Truth