The Patriot Post® · Biden's Hypocritical Record on Sexual Assault
More than five weeks after Tara Reade publicly alleged that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, Biden was finally challenged last Friday to address the charges. That Leftmedia dithering, along with all the cooing endorsements from the loudest #MeToo voices, provided yet another revealing look at the Left’s galling hypocrisy.
Now, we’ll look at Biden’s own track record.
Columnist David Harsanyi sets it up, writing, “As conservatives keep hammering the partisan double standards in the media’s coverage of sexual-assault accusations — a wholly legitimate grievance — they should not forget that Biden has long championed stripping the due-process rights of college students accused of sexual misconduct.”
While serving as Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden spearheaded an initiative to tackle sexual assault on American college and university campuses. Harsanyi explains what that meant: “In 2011, the Obama DOJ’s ‘Dear Colleague’ letter directed institutions of higher learning to adjudicate sexual-assault and misconduct cases under Title IX not by a ‘clear and convincing evidence’ standard, but by a ‘preponderance of evidence.’ The letter also ‘strongly’ discouraged cross-examination of alleged victims — one of the fundamental methods of determining truth — because it ‘may be traumatic or intimidating’ to the alleged victim.”
Biden bullied universities all while frequently repeating the debunked talking point that “one in five” women on college campuses is a victim of sexual abuse. (We wonder what that stat would look like in Democrat offices on Capitol Hill.)
The net result was that accused young men had little recourse for defense and their lives were ruined — in too many cases merely because the woman felt remorse for drunken sex.
Fortunately, Donald Trump’s administration revisited that travesty of justice, eventually reversing it because due process is critically important. Predictably, Biden and other Democrats vigorously complained, even smearing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Biden called her and others “cultural Neanderthals,” and he warned that “the real frightening message you’re going to send out is, ‘Our culture says it’s OK.’”
So what is Biden’s message today? “Justice for me but not for thee.”
As for updates on his case, Biden wrote to Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams over the weekend requesting “assistance in determining whether 27 years ago a staff member in my United States Senate office filed a complaint alleging sexual harassment.” His letter continued, “I request that you take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records of this Office, and once they have been located, to direct a search for the alleged complaint and to make public the results of this search. I would ask that the public release include not only a complaint if one exists, but any and all other documents in the records that relate to the allegation.”
He’s obviously confident no incriminating report exists. Reade essentially conceded as much, admitting that her contemporaneous complaint makes no mention of sexual assault. She did, however, say that a big reason why she was afraid to be more specific was the treatment of Anita Hill, whom Biden trotted out with accusations against Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
To reiterate, Reade is a Democrat who worked for Biden, “really believed Anita Hill,” and supported Hillary “Stand By Your Man” Clinton. We’re a bit skeptical of Reade’s story because there are too many inconsistencies and too little evidence, though there is some contemporaneous corroboration. If only Democrats applied the same standard when trying to destroy good men like Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. After all, by Biden’s standards, he stands guilty as charged.
Addendum: The New York Times, which practically collaborated with Biden on its initial coverage of Reade’s accusation three weeks after the fact, denied the Biden campaign’s assertion that it cleared Biden. The paper also hilariously asked the DNC to take up the investigation. The DNC declined.
Update 5/8: Now there’s some real documentary corroboration, which relieves most of our skepticism: A 1996 court document shows that Reade complained about harassment at the time. This doesn’t look good for Biden at all.