The woman who accused President Joe Biden of sexual assault and sexual harassment has defected to Russia. Tara Reade, who said she endured death threats since coming forward to explain her accusations against Biden, was interviewed during a news conference with a state run media channel in Moscow on May 30.
“When I got off the plane in Moscow, for the first time in a very long time, I felt safe, and I felt heard, and I felt respected. That has not happened in my own country,” Reade said.
Reade wants to “fast track” her Russian citizenship request.
What Are Reade’s Accusations?
Reade was a former Biden senate staffer in 1993 when she says the president attacked her in an office hallway on Capitol Hill. She went public with the allegations in 2020 when the presidential election was in full swing. The accusations were not corroborated with any other Senate workers at the time Reade said it happened.
The President Said No Way Her Allegations Are True
Biden has vehemently denied the accusations. “It never, never happened. It didn’t. It never happened,” Biden told MSNBC in 2020.
Reade said she has been on a whirlwind over the last few weeks as she decided to seek Russian citizenship. “I’m still kind of in a daze a bit but I feel very good,” she told Sputnik.
Biden’s accuser didn’t completely explain why she chose Russia for asylum, but she had considered testifying to Congress about her experience with Biden in 2020.
Russia Provides a Safe Place
“And from what I could see based on the cases and based on what was happening and sort of the push for them to not want me to testify,” Reade said at the news conference. “I felt that while [the 2024] election is gearing up and there’s so much at stake, I’m almost better off here and just being safe. My dream is to live in both places, but it may be that I only live in this place and that’s OK.”
One of the reasons Reade may have chosen Russia could have been her friendship with Maria Butina, a convicted Russian spy who was caught in the United States. Reade sat next to Butina during the event. Butina is now a member of the Russian parliament and belongs to Vladimir Putin’s political party.
The event lasted hours and Reade even spoke about the role of the United States in the war in Ukraine.
Reade’s Pro-Russian Sentiments
“To my Russian brothers and sisters, I’m sorry right now that American elites are choosing to have such an aggressive stance. Just know that most American citizens do want to be friends and hope that we can have unity again.”
Reade has inexplicably supported Putin in the past. She has a YouTube channel in which she makes the case that Russian media outlets such as RT should not be censored in the United States. She has also interviewed Russian diplomats on her channel. She has said that Americans have “Russophobia” and that she is a “long-time anti-imperialist.”
With these controversial ties to Russia, the Republicans are not likely to have Reade testify in Congress and Democrats will continue to ignore her and question her judgment for allying herself with Moscow and Putin.
Reade had a story to tell but it didn’t appear that people believed her version of events. That’s too bad if what she said about Biden is true. Her credibility may have been enhanced if others could have come forward to back up her accusations. And she reportedly received death threats in the United States which is becoming a problem for people who speak out in American politics. Now Reade will be far away from Washington, DC and feels like she blew the whistle on one of the most powerful men in the world, and it resulted in her having to leave the country – not something that she foresaw happening.
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Author Expertise and Experience:
Serving as 19FortyFive’s Defense and National Security Editor, Dr. Brent M. Eastwood is the author of Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare. He is an Emerging Threats expert and former U.S. Army Infantry officer. You can follow him on Twitter @BMEastwood. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and Foreign Policy/ International Relations.
