If Biden's Records Are Sealed and Clean, Why Did He Have Staffers Scouring Them Just Months Ago?
Joe Biden is using the “there’s nothing to see here” stance for those who want to review his records from his time in the Senate housed at the University of Delaware.
But if Biden has nothing to hide, why did the former vice president send campaign operatives to the university last year to search them after he announced his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, as Business Insider reported?
Many believe that those secret Senate files could contain the evidence that his former staffer Tara Reade did report her claim that Biden pushed her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers in 1993.
The university had said for years that the documents would be made available two years after Biden retired from public office.
Shortly before Biden launched his presidential campaign, however, the university announced that the records would only be released two years after the former vice president “retires from public life,” a term the school didn’t define.
The chances are Biden is never going to retire from public life, even if he is defeated in November by President Donald Trump.
Between paid speeches, appearances on television and book deals, it is not likely he will sit in a rocking chair and not be involved in some way in public life.
You could forgive the majority of us who see that statement as more of the university doing a cover-up for the former vice president than protecting any national secrets.
During a Friday segment of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” host Mika Brzezinski asked Biden if he would allow a search of Reade’s name in the records and Biden stumbled as he gave his answer.
I don’t know what’s in Biden’s University of Delaware papers but he really doesn’t want people seeing them.
He won’t even agree to a search of documents just with Tara Reade’s name on them. pic.twitter.com/oavzsdRax2
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) May 1, 2020
“Do you agree with the reporting that [the University of Delaware] records were supposed to be revealed to the public and then they were resealed for a longer period of time until you leave ‘public life?’’
“And if you agree with that, if that’s what happened, why did that happen?” she asked the flustered former VP.
“Look, the fact is that there’s a lot of things — of speeches I’ve made, positions I’ve taken, interviews that I did overseas with people — all of those things relating to my job, and the idea that they would all be made public in fact while I was running for public office, they could be really taken out of context,” Biden said.
“They’re papers or position papers, they are documents that existed and that, for example, when I met with Putin or I met with whomever, and all of that could be fodder in a campaign at this time. I don’t know anyone who has done anything like that,” he said.
Fair enough, but that is not an excuse for his answer to Brzezinski’s next question.
“Are you certain there was nothing about Tara Reade in those records?” she said before Biden interrupted her and said “I am absolutely certain.”
“If so, why not approve a search of her name in those records?” the host asked. The look of stunned bewilderment on Biden’s face was priceless.
He either had not prepared an answer for that question or was stunned that a friendly network like MSNBC would ask him.
“Approve a search of her name?” he repeated.
“Yes, and reveal anything that might be related to Tara Reade in the University of Delaware records?” the host reiterated.
“There is nothing. They wouldn’t — they’re not there. And I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. There are no personnel records by definition,” he said.
“I’m just talking about her name, not anybody else in those records – a search for that,” Brzezinski said after some more back-and-forth.
“Why not do a search for Tara Reade’s name in the University of Delaware records,” she said.
“Look, I mean, who does that search?” Biden responded after an awkward pause.
“The University of Delaware?” the host suggested.
Those do not sound like the words of a man confident in his story. And the actions of his campaign staffers a year prior in searching the records look even more suspicious.
None of that means that he is guilty, but the appearance is not one that benefits him.
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