Devastating 1993 'Larry King' Video Surfaces, Appears To Back Tara Reade's Story
A 1993 video clip supports part of the story told by Tara Reade, a former aide to then-Sen. Joe Biden, who has accused Biden of sexual assault.
Reade has claimed the likely Democratic presidential nominee sexually assaulted her in 1993. Biden served as a U.S. senator representing Delaware from 1973 until he assumed the vice presidency in 2009.
Reade worked for Biden from 1992 to 1993, and has said that in one instance, Biden kissed, groped and digitally penetrated her during an unwanted sexual advance.
Biden’s campaign has denied Reade’s allegation. Although Biden has been the subject of complaints in the past from women who has said he inappropriately touched or kissed them, Biden has denied any inappropriate or malicious intent.
When Reade first told her story to The Intercept, she said her mother, who died in 2016, called into CNN’s “Larry King Live” to discuss the alleged assault, although she was unsure of the precise date.
The newly resurfaced video appears to provide evidence that Reade relayed at least parts of her allegations to her mother.
The video clip shows King taking a call from a woman who did not give her name but who was from San Luis Obispo, California, where Reade’s mother lived.
“I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington?” the caller said.
“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.”
#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
King then asked, “She had a story to tell but out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?”
“That’s true,” the caller replied.
Reade had spoken about the call to Politico last month, before the video clip surfaced.
“She called him, I think, ‘a prominent senator,'” Reade said last month.
“She didn’t get into the assault, she got into the harassment. She said my daughter was sexually harassed by a very prominent senator, and then they retaliated and fired her.”
Read has confirmed that the voice on the video was her mother’s.
“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 told The Daily Caller News Foundation, saying the video proves “that I was forced out and wanted to come forward in 1993.”
This is my mom. I miss her so much and her brave support of me. https://t.co/okU80kqWAI
— taratweets ( Alexandra Tara Reade) (@ReadeAlexandra) April 24, 2020
Donald Trump Jr. used the video as the impetus for a fresh round of tweets about Biden:
Joe Biden isn’t sheltering in place in his basement bunker because of the pandemic, he’s hiding from Tara Reade. pic.twitter.com/Hf61yVQa9Z
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 25, 2020
OMG. Even today’s media will have a hard time not covering this, but they will try desperately. https://t.co/Vl1cs59OFo
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 24, 2020
Fox News reported that the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters was among the first to find the video clip, which was not uncovered by CNN despite the fact that King worked for the network in 1993 and that the video aired on CNN.
“While unsurprising given how fundamentally unserious of a network CNN has become, it’s gratifying for the MRC but shameful for CNN that they hadn’t unearthed this long ago,” NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck told Fox.
“It’s truly despicable that this footage existed and yet CNN failed to do its own due diligence within its own archives,” he said.
“That CNN couldn’t pull this clip out of their own archives, even after Reade mentioned it in a recent interview, seems to demonstrate that CNN just lacks hustle to investigate this story or just wants to keep the story buried,” DePauw University professor and media commentator Jeffrey McCall added to Fox. “Either way, this comes off as journalistic misconduct.”
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