7 Questions About Tara Reade, Woman Who Accused Biden of Assault and Defected to Russia

This week, several news outlets reported that Tara Reade, the woman who in 2019 accused Joe Biden of sexually harassing her, had moved to Russia and hoped to attain citizenship there. The news raised eyebrows, coming after the long investigation into potential Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and the current conflict between the Biden and Putin administrations over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Read on to find the answers to five of the most common questions about Tara Reade. 

Tara Reade, 58, is a former Senate staffer who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault in 2019. In 1992, she was hired by Biden as a staff assistant in his Senate office. She worked there for eight months. Her responsibilities included the office's intern program and mail delivery.

Reade grew up in Monterey County, California. She claimed to have received an undergraduate degree from Antioch University. She graduated from law school in 2004 but did not practice law.  

In 2019, Reade alleged that Joe Biden had sexually assaulted her in a Capitol Hill office building in 1993. She said that Biden had harassed her on other occasions, making inappropriate comments about her body and touching her inappropriately.

Reade left Biden's office in 1993. She has said that she left because of Biden's sexual harassment. However, she did not file a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee at the time. Biden has flatly denied Reade's allegations. 

In April 2020, the New York Times launched an investigation, interviewing three staffers Reade said she reported the harassment to. The three staffers denied receiving such a report and could not remember Reade. In May 2020, the PBS NewsHour interviewed 74 former Biden staffers. They found no evidence to support Reade's accusation or any pattern of sexual harassment in Biden's office.

One employee, Ben Savage, said Reade was overwhelmed by the office's workload, her responsibilities were reduced, and she was eventually fired for poor job performance.

Reade's credibility was damaged when the New York Times reported that she held no undergraduate degree from Antioch University and had not served on the faculty there, as she had claimed. As a result, a prominent lawyer associated with the #MeToo movement dropped her as a client. 

On May 31, Reade said she had moved to Russia and would apply for Russian citizenship. She said she made the move because she had received threats in the United States, NPR reported. Reade told Sputnik, a Russian state-owned news outlet, that her "dream is to live" in both the United States and Russia. Still, she might live only in Russia, where she feels "surrounded by protection and safety."

Reade said her decision to go to Russia "was very difficult," but she wasn't the only one who had made the move. "As far as like going to another safe haven, I mean, there are many Americans here, and I don't want to out a bunch of Americans, but there are people here that are coming to Russia," she told Sputnik. "Luckily, the Kremlin is accommodating," she added. "So we're lucky."

Reade spoke at an event that included convicted Russian agent Maria Butina, who is now a member of the Duma, the lower house of Russia's legislature. Reade said she hoped Butina could help her with her citizenship application, NPR reported. "I don't know what will happen with that, but I do promise to be a good citizen and I promise to move forward with my life in a positive way," said Reade.