Tara Reade’s former neighbor, a supporter of former Vice President Joe Biden, says that Reade told her about being sexually assaulted by Joe Biden back in 1995 or 1996, shortly after the alleged assault happened.
In an article for Business Insider, Rich McHugh, the producer at NBC News who helped reporter Ronan Farrow break the Weinstein story (a story the network allegedly later tanked) interviewed Reade’s former neighbor, Lynda LaCasse, who confirmed that Reade told her of the assault.
“This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it,” LaCasse told the outlet.
Last month, Tara Reade claimed that then-Senator Joe Biden sexually assaulted her while she served as an aide in his Senate offices during the Clinton administration. She has since detailed her account in multiple interviews and filed a criminal complaint against the former vice president with the Washington, D.C., police department. Though Reade filed a case against Biden with the Senate human resources office (over possible retaliation, not about the assault), those documents currently remain sealed with Biden’s other papers at the University of Delaware.
LaCasse claims that Reade told her of the assault in 1995 or 1996, recalling to McHugh how the incident “devastated” Reade.
“I remember her saying, here was this person that she was working for and she idolized him,” LaCasse said. “And he kind of put her up against a wall. And he put his hand up her skirt and he put his fingers inside her. She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do.”
“I don’t remember all the details,” she added, echoing details of the alleged assault that came to light in Reade’s interviews last week. “I remember the skirt. I remember the fingers. I remember she was devastated.”
“She was crying,” she continued. “She was upset. And the more she talked about it, the more she started crying. I remember saying that she needed to file a police report.”
LaCasse claims that she and Reade would occasionally join each other for conversations on her front stoop at night.
“We were talking about violent stories,” LaCasse said, “because I had a violent situation. We just started talking about things and she just told me about the senator that she had worked for and he put his hand up her skirt.”
LaCasse added that she is a strong Democrat who will still be supporting Biden despite this story. “I personally am a Democrat, a very strong Democrat,” she said. “And I’m for Biden, regardless. But still I have to come out and say this.”
As a result of the interview, Rich McHugh has deemed Reade’s allegations, “credible.”
Another source, Lorraine Sanchez, who worked with Tara Reade in the mid-1990s, told Business Insider that Reade complained about being sexually harassed by her former boss, who then fired her in retaliation.
Reade also claims to have shared the story with her brother at the time of the incident (he has confirmed) and with her mother. Initially, Reade’s claim of telling her mother appeared unverifiable, given that her mother passed away several years ago. However, last Friday, the Intercept published a tape that revealed Reade’s mother called in to CNN’s “Larry King Live” back in 1993 to discuss ‘problems” her daughter had with a “prominent senator.” Audio transcript below:
LARRY KING: San Luis Obispo, California, hello.
CALLER: Yes, hello. 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.
KING: In other words, she had a story to tell but, out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?
CALLER: That’s true.
The mainstream media has either ignored these new developments or run cover for Joe Biden.
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