Sec. of Senate says “no discretion” to release any info on Tara Reade, while Biden and DNC still refuse U. Delaware archives search
Hmmm, did Biden’s lawyers know this when they requested the secretary release his records?
The Senate Secretary said the office has “no discretion to disclose any such information” when it comes to presumptive 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s records concerning Tara Reade, who alleges he sexually assaulted her in 1993.
This comes a day after The New York Times editorial board suggested the DNC form an “unbiased, apolitical panel” to investigate sexual assault allegations against Biden. DNC Chairman Tom Perez brushed aside the idea of a panel.
Biden said on Friday’s Morning Joe that he gives the National Archives permission to release his Senate records (which is closed to the pandemic) and the Senate Secretary to review the items.
The Senate Legal Counsel said this:
Secretary of the Senate responds to Joe Biden’s request to review any alleged complaint filed by Tara Reade and release it: No can do.
Office has “no discretion to disclose any such information.” pic.twitter.com/IBNfrl4fjm
— Susan Davis (@DaviSusan) May 4, 2020
It makes you wonder if Biden’s campaign and lawyers knew this would happen. Why else would he give permission to the Senate Secretary and yet fight the University of Delaware?
Biden request was total charade, what's the chance his lawyers didn't know this when they made the request? https://t.co/gPkxQqmTAO
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) May 4, 2020
Of course! That's why #TeamBiden made the request in the first place, meanwhile fighting U. Delaware archives https://t.co/WlUhzAs3Wi
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) May 4, 2020
This comes a day after Perez dismissed the suggestion on ABC’s This Week because he trusts Biden and “there have been ‘so many investigations’ into Biden.”
The Washington Post editorial board first demanded Biden release his records. Then The New York Times demanded the same thing plus a panel put together by the DNC to investigate the allegations.
Perez basically laughed it off. From The New York Post:
“There’s been so many investigations of the vice-president. The most comprehensive investigation of the vice-president was when he was vetted by Barack Obama in 2008. I’m very familiar with the vice-presidential vetting process. They look at everything about you,” Perez said on ABC News’ “This Week.”
“They looked at the entire history of Joe Biden, his entire career. And I’ll tell you, if Barack Obama had any indication that there was an issue, Barack Obama would not have had him as his vice-president. Barack Obama trusted Joe Biden. I trust Joe Biden. And those investigations have been done.”
Perez also compared the accusations against Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, to the email controversy that dogged Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
“This is like the Hillary emails, because there was nothing there,” he said.
Tara Reade accused Biden of sexual assault back in 1993 when she worked in his Senate office. People have corroborated her story. She said she filed a complaint, which she believes is in Biden’s Senate personnel records.
Biden denied the allegations on Friday’s Morning Joe. He also said the complaint would be in the National Archives, which is closed right now, and said it should release the papers. As Fuzzy noted on Sunday night, Biden asked the Secretary of the Senate to search for a complaint from Tara Reade.
However, the University of Delaware has the records. The university said it will not release anything until Biden has been retired from public life for two years. Mika on Morning Joe asked Biden why not ask the university to search the records by Reade’s name. Of course, he refused.
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Comments
The New York Times editorial board suggested the DNC form an “unbiased, apolitical panel”…
You should issue a warning before printing howlers like that. I almost shot hot coffee out my nose when reading that.
The senate doesn’t want those records open because they have have similar records on, I would daresay, a majority of Senators since the 60s. We – the taxpayers – have been paying hush money to abused women, and men, for decades. And they do not want us to know that.
What is worse every woman in congress and the senate are absolutely silent on the slush fund. Could it be that all they care about is the money and that the tax payers pay for their play.
If there is actually a slush fund used by Congress to silence sexual assault victims by Congressmen, that is bombshell. Would and should totally blow up our entire democracy. That sort of thing cannot be tolerated in the US.
The story has been out for years. The claim is that paying off complainers is better for everybody even when their complaints are false (which, of course, they must be because no elected official would ever do anything wrong. See?)
No, they must be because everyone knows that many (perhaps even most) such complaints are false. There’s no reason that should magically stop being true just because the workplace happens to be Congress.
It’s only a bombshell because no one pays attention. What you’re looking for is H.R.1 – Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/house-bill/1)
CNN discusses it here (https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/settlements-congress-sexual-harassment/index.html), USA Today here (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/11/27/sexual-harassment-fund-exposes-congress-editorials-debates/898008001/), NPR discusses how they “fixed” it by forcing the congresspeople pay the first $300K of any settlement “out of pocket” (read: from their campaign funds.)
Forgot the NPR link: https://www.npr.org/2018/12/12/676209258/congress-to-make-members-pay-out-of-pocket-for-sexual-harassment-settlements
It’s not exactly that. It covers all complaints by congressional employees — not only against the congressmen but against anyone else in the workplace, and not only for sexual harassment but for all forms of discrimination in employment. Which means the vast majority of the money paid out is not related to congressional hanky-panky, but that’s what creates the clickbait so that’s how it’s reported.
This charade is all about protecting Obama as well as Biden. How could the Obama admin vet Biden for VP, yet miss a sexual assault allegation? Democrats are dirtbags – every last one of them!
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, another deceitful Democrat (as if there’s another kind)
A Democrat wouldn’t lie.
“I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again; your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/fdr-churchill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfSU-VGixjM
Wilson, another Democrat, lied similarly in 1916. In fact, it was a plank in his campaign.
Biden has been investigated, Really? On any scale similar to Trump and associates? Ha…
The College Fix is reporting that Biden campaign officials have been going through Biden’s files at the University of Deleware.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/report-biden-campaign-operatives-rifled-through-the-candidates-records-at-u-delaware/
As an added “bonus”, the chairman of the UD board of trustees is a big Biden donor.
How lovely. Congress gave themselves a unique kind of confidentiality that even they cannot wave. Either that or they game them selves lawyers in the office of legal counsel who will “interpret” statutes however they wish.
This Exposes how hypocritical those members of Congress who demand private citizens release women accusers from NDAs really area. They can whine all they want about NDAs knowing full well the records of their accusers are supposedly unrealeasable.
Biden hasn’t been employed by the US Government since Jan 20, 2017. Sounds to me like the artificial 2-year deadline created by U of D has been met…
How should we square
“The most comprehensive investigation of the vice-president was when he was vetted by Barack Obama in 2008. I’m very familiar with the vice-presidential vetting process. They look at everything about you”
with the multiple examples of plagiarism and outright lies in this video that derailed Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign:
https://youtu.be/3Ofr8YE7TuU
Bob Mueller has free time and experience runnig investigations.
sarc//
Obama “vetted” Biden, yet somehow missed all all of those times prior where he was pawing little girls
Surely there are “sources” willing to spill this stuff to some fire-fighting journalist?