by Mary Margaret Olohan
New video evidence proves that accuser Tara Reade was forced out of her job as a senate staffer for 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden, Reade told the Daily Caller News Foundation Friday.
The 56-year-old Reade had previously told The Intercept that her mother called into “Larry King Live” on CNN regarding Biden’s alleged assault. A transcript obtained by The Intercept, as well as a video uncovered by the Media Research Center, show that someone from her mother’s city did indeed call into CNN in 1993 and asked for advice about her daughter’s problems with a “prominent senator.”
Reade reminded the DCNF that she had told reporters that her mother called the Larry King show about her alleged assault.
“I just heard audio, my mother died and hearing her voice made me cry. She was such a good mom and always watching out for me even now,” she said, adding that the video proves what she has been saying: “that I was forced out and wanted to come forward in 1993.”
Reade worked as a Senate staffer for Biden in 1993 and has accused the then-senator of kissing her, touching her and penetrating her with his fingers without her consent. The Biden campaign has denied the assault and said it “absolutely did not happen.”
The Biden accuser has told multiple news outlets that she told her mother, who died in 2016, about the alleged assault. Reade had previously said that her mother called into a CNN show and referenced Reade’s troubles on Capitol Hill.
NEW: Tara Reade told mer her mother called the Larry King Live show in the '90s and discussed her daughter's problems with Biden's office, referring to him only as a "prominent senator."
The call exists, and here's a transcript: https://t.co/KHpqDlrpOG https://t.co/5c7YIUdJ4f
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) April 24, 2020
“I remember it being an anonymous call and her saying my daughter was sexually harassed and retaliated against and fired, where can she go for help? I was mortified,” Reade told The Intercept.
She was in her 20s at the time, and could not provide The Intercept with dates related to the call.
The Intercept’s Ryan Grim discussed Reade’s comments during a podcast interview with Katie Halper, who first aired Reade’s allegations.
After the podcast aired, a listener located the transcript of a call very similar to the one Reade had referenced. The transcript of the call was dated Aug. 11, 1993, the publication reported, noting that congressional records show that August 1993 was the last month of Reade’s employment with Biden’s Senate office.
In the transcript of the Larry King program titled “Washington: The Cruelest City on Earth,” King introduced a caller from San Luis Obispo, California — the California city where Reade’s mother resided, according to The Intercept.
“San Luis Obispo, California, hello,” King said, according to the transcript.
“Yes, hello,” the caller responded. “I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington? 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.”
“In other words, she had a story to tell but, out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it,” King responded.
“That’s true,” the caller said.
Reade said she is sure that the call was from her mother, she told The Intercept after being read the transcript.
Following the discovery of the transcript, the Media Research Center uncovered the video of the August 11, 1993 edition of CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Friday.
#BREAKING: HERE is the video from August 11,1993's 'Larry King Live' described by @TheIntercept (and Tara Reade) as allegedly featuring her mother calling in and alluding to Reade's sexual assault claims against @JoeBiden (blog here by @ScottJW) https://t.co/fCgEqBnX7n pic.twitter.com/V5FGHskv56
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 24, 2020
The San Luis Obispo caller does not specifically reference sexual harassment during the call, as Reade had told The Intercept, but the publication noted that the caller said her daughter “could not get through with her problems at all,” and could only have gone “to the press.”
These statements also align with the Biden accuser’s claims that though she told her superiors in Biden’s office about her allegations, she did not receive help.
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
