Tara Reade Biden allegation megathread

[new_patomic]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/us/politics/tara-reade-credentials.html?referringSource=articleShare

Ugh. This honestly makes me so sad.

"Ms. Reade says she received her degree through the private assistance of the school’s then-president, Tullisse Murdock. She says she never received a diploma or requested one since she was “fast-tracked” to law school.

“The president took it from the registrar and did it herself for complete confidentiality,” she said in an interview."

Yeah... there isn't a single part of this that feels believable.

For her to be telling the truth. The President of the School would have had to go above the Registrar Office's collective head to confer her a degree, apparently for all of 35 credits, and then not even offer to ship her a diploma.

[new_patomic]

Immaterial or not, the latest twists and turns in this haven't exactly helped the credibility of her 2019 allegations either.

Not even in the sense of the back and forth over the complaint, though the fact that no record of it seems to exist continues to not be helpful, whatever it ultimately says.

Of course it's only the one coworker, Ben Savage, who has said she had issues fulfilling her duties and suggesting she was fired for performance reasons. That's not something any of her actual superiors have suggested yet. Though there is the circumstantial evidence that she may have had her pay demoted/marked for performance issues.

The biggest problem really is the situation she offered just doesn't seem likely. There's a huge red line between federal congressional staff and campaign work. You can do it, and even be paid for it, but only on your own time, not as part of your official office duties. If it really was the case that his office was blurring those lines, then it's not likely she's somehow the only one who ever got asked to work a fundraiser, or do something that wasn't kosher. There would be others, it would suggest a total lack of institutional control within the office, and would constitute numerous ethics violations even beyond just sexual harassment.