Tara Reade Biden allegation megathread

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

When is this bulls**t gonna die?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I am still uneasy with everything about this. It doesn't seem like it's going to go away.

Here is what Biden needs to do: Hire someone independent of his campaign to gather all evidence proving his innocence. Once this is found, he needs to immediately release it and issue a spoken address denying the allegations, while still being careful not to disparage the accuser. After this, I would just advise them to move on and avoid this topic. Suffocate it, do not give it oxygen.

Not that any amount of evidence will dissuade the Bernie-or-Bust people and the Trumptards. After all, Obama released his long-form birth certificate and you still have millions of people, including elected officials, believing that he was born in Kenya.

Trying to convince them doesn't matter. What does matter is making sure this doesn't create feelings of doubt in the broader electorate and result in people who would have voted for Joe staying home.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Humans are complicated. There is no "right way" for someone to interact with their abuser. Think of domestic situations where the wife maintains a relationship with her husband despite abuse. I find it perfectly plausible Reade could've retained respect for Biden and his career (what brought her to his office in the first place) even after the alleged sexual assault happened.

We get it. You want to believe the story, so you're going to find any justification you can.

Tell me, how did Biden engineer the greatest coverup in US history? How did he make sure that none of the dozens of staffers (including some Republicans and probably some fans of the other Democratic candidates) who would have known never talked over nearly 3 decades, even through all the years of vetting and opposition research? Why is the whole Washington machine covering for Biden here?

Maybe you can twist an argument to say that Reade's actions could plausibly happen, just maybe, but there's no way that there's a vast bipartisan conspiracy, including McCain and Romney, to coverup Biden's actions. If Reade is telling the truth, the Deep State is real and QAnon might be too.

Harry, you've worked in a Senate office (IIRC) as have I.  It's an environment where (especially young) people come and go with amazing frequency.  Most people who get there put their heads down and barrel through the work until moving back to the state or Downtown.  It's not an environment really conducive to developing the sort of repertoire with your superiors that is common in most workplaces.  I don't really see what you're getting at when you insist for Reade's story to be true that it must be accompanied with a "Hey guys, we had to let Tara go because she said Joe finger blasted her in the hallway" staff meeting.  What is your reason for thinking that other people in her office at the time would have cared to see her leave or heard her story?

As someone who has worked on the Hill, I just have a hard time seeing how someone (who also worked on the Hill, no less) thinks that in order for Reade's allegations to be true all her coworkers would have had to know about it.  Maybe I'm missing something?

I've worked in the senate too, and the idea that this could casually happen in a senate office hallway is ludicrous. They aren't exactly private. That alone makes this story seriously questionable.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Really, really sick stuff. "Debunking" posts that don't even remotely do such things. There is not even a little bit of a gotcha in the strawman you built.

Stop taking it upon yourself to do pathetic sub-amateur investigative work. You only make this more believable with your complete blindness.

I could literally write a novel debunking Tara Reade's claims with hard evidence and you would write the same thing.

Admit it.  You want to believe this, so you've chosen to adopt that worldview, and you're rejecting all evidence that doesn't fit your worldview.

Tara said she was raped in a hallway of the Russell Office Building.  There is no hallway in that building where she could possibly have been raped without a hundred people immediately noticing.  This isn't "sub-amateur investigative work" this is looking at one of the few hard facts she gives us in her testimony and seeing how it holds up.  And there's no strawman because it's literally her own words.

Does this single fact debunk her claim?  No, because she could have mis-remembered the office building.  But it's yet another in the "she could have mis-remembered A, and B, and C, and D, and E, and F, and..." line of excuses that you have to keep adding to in order to believe her claim.

I don't believe Reade's claims as I've stated a half dozen times, and I probably wouldn't care if they were true. It's just your assertive posts of zero evidence make it marginally more believable. It's not about mis-remembering either. We're talking about a two minute act that can easily happen in a stairwell. I'm not as familiar with the building, but it seems like it can easily be accessed when there aren't people around. You continuously make up your own fact pattern to argue against. No one is imagining a labyrinth.

So now we are just assuming things about Reade's testimony that she never said and in fact said otherwise just to make it add up?

Yes. MacArthur clearly is. I'm not the one giving it extraordinary scrutiny as if she presented certain facts. I am not dictating the time of day. I am the one leaving that as an open variable. I am not the one narrowly reading 'hallway'. MacArthur is the one intent on find the single hallway.

She said basement in the WaPo article? Aren't those two distinct places?

The basement of Russell literally has that exact same floor plan and usually has more people in it's hallways than basically anywhere else in the Senate office buildings. I can't think of a less private spot. It doesn't add up.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Yet another hole in the story.  Reade says this happened in a hallway in the Russell Senate office building.

Reade’s assault allegation, which became public last month, involves an interaction in the spring of 1993. She said that she was sent by her manager to bring a gym bag to Biden, and they met in a hallway of the Russell Senate Office Building, in a tucked away corner. Before she knew it, he pressed her up against the wall, forcibly kissed her, and put a hand each up her blouse and skirt, penetrating her with his fingers.

Maybe, when you heard this story, you imagined some labyrinth of hallways where Tara could easily get lost and raped in some dusty nook where no one ever ventures.

Here's a floor plan of that building:



Anyone want to point out where Biden could possibly have raped Tara without immediately being seen and heard by anyone walking by?  There's only a few nooks and they're all for stairways, elevators or bathrooms.  Other than that it would have to be in another Senator's office.

This is such a minuscule, random aspect of the story that calling it a gaping "hole" in Reade's allegations really demonstrates how much you want this to go away.

I have worked in this building.  It's a big square with long hallways, yes, but there're times/places where foot traffic is relatively light.  In the Russell Building, every entry door along the hallway is recessed from the main corridor and these alcoves are removed from the main line-of-sight for the most part (see picture).  The Russell Building also has underground areas connecting it to the Capitol and Dirksen/Hart Office Buildings; the basement floorplan is not as regular as the above-ground floors and and access to the basement is exclusively reserved for Senators/staffers.

Both these thing aren't true. And besides, the basement hallways (where this supposedly happened) are almost always full of staffers and visitors going to and from the Capitol Subway.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Yet another hole in the story.  Reade says this happened in a hallway in the Russell Senate office building.

Reade’s assault allegation, which became public last month, involves an interaction in the spring of 1993. She said that she was sent by her manager to bring a gym bag to Biden, and they met in a hallway of the Russell Senate Office Building, in a tucked away corner. Before she knew it, he pressed her up against the wall, forcibly kissed her, and put a hand each up her blouse and skirt, penetrating her with his fingers.

Maybe, when you heard this story, you imagined some labyrinth of hallways where Tara could easily get lost and raped in some dusty nook where no one ever ventures.

Here's a floor plan of that building:



Anyone want to point out where Biden could possibly have raped Tara without immediately being seen and heard by anyone walking by?  There's only a few nooks and they're all for stairways, elevators or bathrooms.  Other than that it would have to be in another Senator's office.

This is such a minuscule, random aspect of the story that calling it a gaping "hole" in Reade's allegations really demonstrates how much you want this to go away.

I have worked in this building.  It's a big square with long hallways, yes, but there're times/places where foot traffic is relatively light.  In the Russell Building, every entry door along the hallway is recessed from the main corridor and these alcoves are removed from the main line-of-sight for the most part (see picture).  The Russell Building also has underground areas connecting it to the Capitol and Dirksen/Hart Office Buildings; the basement floorplan is not as regular as the above-ground floors and and access to the basement is exclusively reserved for Senators/staffers.

Both these thing aren't true. And besides, the basement hallways (where this supposedly happened) are almost always full of staffers and visitors going to and from the Capitol Subway.

Visitors aren't allowed on the Capitol subway or the underground passages between the office buildings/Capitol.  Large tour groups have to enter/exit Senate buildings at ground level (at least, this is how it was like in 2016 when I worked there).  And tour groups don't get in after 3:00p or 4:00p, IIRC.  By 5:00 or 6:00, the hallways are pretty empty.

And the underground floors are more irregular, because they're connected to the Dirksen/Hart and Capitol buildings.

Visitors and tour groups are allowed to use the Capitol Subway from Russell, but not from Dirksen/Hart. And the basement and passages over to Dirksen and Hart are all open to the public. I suppose if it happened at 7 pm or something, it would be hypothetically possible, but I'm very, very skeptical. Also, I would assume the basement of Russell would have CCTV by the '90s.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Using social media as any sort of barometer of truth at this point won't lead anywhere.

I actually think Biden should allow and willingly cooperate with an investigation. It'll likely result in no wrongdoing on his part and what would he have to lose otherwise? If it's not true, then it becomes a non-story and the people who are drumming this up and weren't going to vote for him won't vote for him anyway.

If it is true, then well...yeah, we have a problem.

The issue with that is that we get a month of headlines with the words "Joe Biden" and "Assault Allegation" in them so regardless of how substance-free this whole thing is, that's going to stick on voters' minds.