Joe Biden On Tara Reade: ‘It Never Happened’

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” former Vice President Joe Biden pointedly denied the accusations by former staffer Tara Reade that he sexually assaulted her in 1993.

Mika Brzezinski began an interview with Biden by launching directly into the allegations in a hardhitting interview, saying, “Please excuse the graphic nature of this, but I want to make sure there is no question as to what we are talking about.”

“She says in 1993, Mr. Vice President, that you pinned her against the wall and reached under her clothing and penetrated her with your fingers,” Brzezinksi said. “Would you please go on the record with the American people, did you sexually assault Tara Reade?”

Biden’s answer was clear and direct, “No, it is not true. I’m saying unequivocally, it never, never happened. And it didn’t, it never happened.”

Brzezinki pressed further, “Do you remember her? Do you remember any types of complaints that she might have made?”

“I don’t remember any type of complaint she may have made,” Biden responded. “It was 27 years ago and I don’t remember – nor does anyone else that I’m aware of – and the fact is that I don’t remember. I don’t remember any complaint ever having been made.”

Brzezinksi then asked if Biden or members of his campaign had “reached out” to Reade.

“No, I have not reached out to her,” Biden said. “It was 27 years ago, this never happened, and when she first made the claim we made it clear that it never happened and it’s as simple as that.”

Brzezinski then questioned Biden on a statement that his campaign released saying that there was “only one place” that Reade’s original complaint could be found: The National Archives. The statement asks the Secretary of the Senate to identify any relevant records in the Archive and to release them.

“Are you preparing us for a complaint that might be revealed in some way?” Brzezinski asked. “Are you confident there is nothing?

“I’m confident there’s nothing,” Biden replied. “No one ever brought it to the attention of me 27 years ago, this or any assertion at all. No one that I’m aware of in my campaign, my Senate office at the time, is aware of any such request or any such complaint, and so I’m not worried about it all. If there is a complaint, that’s where it would be. That’s where it would be filed. And, if it’s there, put it out, but I’ve never seen it. No one has that I’m aware of.”

“Since you want to set the record straight,” Brzezinski probed, “why limit this to Tara Reade? Why not release any complaints that have been made against you during your Senate career?

“I’m prepared to do that,” Biden answered. “To the best of my knowledge, there have been no complaints against me in terms of my Senate career and my office and how things have been run. Look, this is an open book. There’s nothing for me to hide. Nothing at all.”

Brzezinksi then backtracked to the Kavanaugh hearings and Biden’s statement at the time that “you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she is talking about is real, whether or not she forgets the facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time.”

“Should we not start off with the presumption that the essence of what she said is real?” Brzezinski asked. “She says you sexually assaulted her.”

“Look,” Biden said. “From the very beginning I’ve said believing women means taking the woman’s claim seriously when she steps forward and then vet it. Look into it. That’s true in this case as well. Women have a right to be heard and the pressure to vigorously investigate claims that they make. I’ll always uphold that principle, but in the end, in every case, the truth is what matters and, in this case, the truth is that the claims are false.”

“Is it possible these claims are in an NDA [nondisclosure agreement]?” Brzezinksi asked. “Do you have any NDAs that have been signed by women who were employed by you?”

“There is no NDA signed,” Biden answered. “I’ve never asked anyone to sign an NDA. There are no NDAs. Period. In my case, none.”

Brzezinski then asked about Biden’s Senate documents which held at the University of Delaware. The university says the papers are still being curated, a process that is expected to continue until 2021. The papers are due to be released two years after Biden’s retirement. Brzezinksi alleged that access to the documents had been changed and asked if Biden would release the documents in the interests of “complete transparency.”

“They weren’t supposed to be revealed,” Biden answered, refuting the claim that the schedule for release had been altered. “I gave them to the university and the university said it’s going to take them time to go through all the boxes. They said it wouldn’t be before 2020 that that occurred. Or 2021. I can’t remember the year that they said.”

“But look, a record like this can only be one place,” he continued. “It would not be at the University of Delaware. My archives do not contain personal files. My documents contain – and when I say ‘personal’ I mean ‘personnel’ files, they don’t contain any personnel files. They are public records. My speeches, my papers, my position papers, and, if that document exists, it would be stored at the National Archives where documents from the office she claims to have filed a complaint with are stored. That’s where they are stored. The Senate controls those archives. So, I’m asking the Secretary of the Senate today to identify whether any such document exists. If it does, make it public.”

When asked why he thought Reade was making the allegations, Biden anwered, “I’m not going to question her motive, I’m not going to get into that at all. I don’t know why she’s saying this. I don’t know why, after 27 years, all of a sudden this gets raised. I don’t understand it, but I’m not going to go in and question her motive, I’m not going to attack her.”

“She has a right to say whatever she wants to say,” he added, “but I have a right to say, ‘Look at the facts, check it out. Find out whether any of what she has said or asserted is true.'”

“That was not the atmosphere in my office at all,” Biden continued. “No one has ever said anything like this.

The interview did become contentious when Brzezinksi pressed the issue of a search of the University of Delaware files for Tara Reade’s name. Biden maintained that the files did not pertain to the case, but that they did contain other confidential records of meetings with presidents and other heads of state. When Biden pressed on how such a search would be conducted, Brzezinski was at a loss.

Joe Biden’s forceful and direct answers to difficult questions will help his campaign. He makes a credible case that Reade’s claims are false. That will be enough for his campaign to move forward.

The matter will hinge on whether the Senate archives produce the original complaint that Reade allegedly filed in 1993. If she is telling the truth, this document should still be on record. Regardless, the rumors will likely be kept alive by Biden’s political opponents.

Biden helped himself in another way in the interview as well. He appeared rational and lucid throughout the exchange. This is in contrast with allegations by the Trump campaign that Biden is suffering from age-related mental problems. Although there were a few stumbles, the candidate appeared as normal as anyone in a live, high-stakes interview. It may be that Biden is clumsy at reading from a teleprompter but is more smooth and direct when speaking from the heart.

Don’t expect the accusations to go away after this interview, but unless Tara Reade can produce more evidence that her encounter with Biden actually happened, the matter will begin to fade into the background.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Republicans May Snatch a Supreme Court Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Republicans may be about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when it comes to the Supreme Court. The decision to have the FBI investigate Brett Kavanaugh may well delay President Trump’s appointment to the Supreme Court so long that it won’t be possible to appoint a conservative to the seat.

As yet, there is little evidence that Christine Blasey Ford is correct in her identification of Brett Kavanaugh as the man who attacked her sometime in the early or mid-1980s, but that may no longer matter. Since last week’s Senate testimony, the goalposts have shifted from the question of whether Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Ford to whether he lied under oath.

A central thrust of the argument against Kavanaugh is now that he committed perjury by lying about his behavior as a young man at Georgetown Prep. Several former classmates have already come forward to say that the judge has not been honest about the extent of his drinking, his sexual activities and the meanings of slang terms written in his yearbook. If the FBI investigation uncovers evidence that Kavanaugh has been lying to Congress, then it might not only lend credence to Ford’s allegations, but it would also undermine Kavanaugh’s credibility in general. Having a wild adolescence is one thing, but lying about your past in current testimony is another.

The fact that the White House expanded the scope of the investigation also works against Republicans. The midterm elections are a month away and the investigation will last at least until the end of next week, assuming that it is not expanded further in terms of scope and time. Even if the FBI investigation comes up clean, Republicans will be forced to vote on an unpopular nominee shortly before a hotly contested election. That scenario could cost the GOP even more seats.

The other scenario is even worse. If the investigation uncovers more embarrassing facts about Kavanaugh’s past, Republicans could find themselves in a position where President Trump has to vet, appoint and confirm a new nominee in the short time before the new Congress is seated, which may well contain a Democrat majority in the Senate.

Lame duck Republicans may find themselves hard pressed to confirm a Supreme Court candidate. Moderates such as the usual suspects (Flake, Collins and Murkowski) could delay or vote no, especially if the election turns out to be a rebuke of President Trump and the GOP, and there would be absolutely no chance of having Democrats cross the aisle to confirm. If Democrats win control of the Senate, the Supreme Court may well soldier on with eight justices for the next two years.

Of course, President Trump had no choice but to authorize an investigation after Sen. Jeff Flake’s threat to oppose Kavanaugh. The slim GOP majority cannot afford any deserters and Flake may well have taken Collins and Murkowski with him.

The big question with no answer is whether Flake would have threatened to derail the nomination if he had not been party to a multi-year feud with President Trump. Flake has long been a critic of President Trump and the president returned the favor by working to undermine the senator’s reelection campaign, eventually forcing Flake into retirement. If Donald Trump had been nicer to Jeff Flake would Kavanaugh be celebrating his confirmation now? There is no way to know for sure.

In the end, Ford has an inconsistent story, Kavanaugh is contradicted by his classmates and Trump has a habit of hurling insults. There is a lesson here that everyone involved should take to heart: Words matter.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Roy Moore Was Never A Good Candidate

One year into the Trump revolution it now appears almost certain that a Senate seat in deep-red Alabama is going to end up in the hands of the Democrats. The slim Republican majority will likely be eroded to a single seat, which will effectively put the brakes on the Republican agenda. It’s worth looking back at how the Republican Party got here.

The Alabama Senate race began simply enough. Incumbent Jeff Sessions left to become the attorney general with the full expectation that the governor of Alabama would appoint a Republican to take his place and the state’s conservative voters would rubberstamp the governor’s pick.

Enter Luther Strange. Strange was the state attorney general and was responsible for the investigation of Gov. Robert Bentley. Bentley picked Strange to be the new senator in a move that many Alabamans thought smacked of an insider quid pro quo after impeachment proceedings against the governor were delayed for six months.

Although he was endorsed by President Trump and the majority of the Washington Republicans, the scent of corruption was too great for Strange to overcome. Strange and Moore were the top two finishers in the Republican primary in August. Moore, backed by Steve Bannon and the populist wing of the GOP, went on to defeat Strange in the runoff to become the Republican nominee.

Things went bad for Moore almost immediately. A Fox News poll in October, weeks before the sex scandal broke, showed that Moore was tied with Democrat Doug Jones at 42 percent. The poll was a shock to Alabama Republicans.

In a moment that may turn out to be prophetic, President Trump had argued at a September rally for Luther Strange that “ Roy has a very good chance of not winning in the general election.”

Moore had a long history in Alabama. Twice elected to the Alabama Supreme Court, he had finished neither term. He was removed from the court in 2003 for refusing to comply with a federal court’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state building. In 2015, he was removed again for refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision mandating same-sex marriage. Between his partial terms on the court, Moore mounted two unsuccessful campaigns for governor in 2006 and 2010.

Even before Moore partnered with Steve Bannon to take on Strange, there were warning signs about Moore. The most obvious red flags were Moore’s connections to fringe conspiracy beliefs. Moore debuted as a columnist for World Net Daily, a prominent fake news site, in 2006. One of the columns that Moore authored argued for a religious test for office that would prohibit Muslims from serving in Congress. Moore was also a prominent birther, claiming that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen as recently as December 2016. In a September 2017 interview with Vox, Moore claimed, “There are communities under Sharia law right now in our country.”

Even before the sexual assault allegations, there were questions about Moore’s character. In 2002, Moore founded the nonprofit legal organization, the Foundation for Moral Law. Moore said in public that he did not take a “regular salary” from the group, but the Washington Post reported that the charity paid Moore a salary of $180,000 per year, which amounted to more than $1 million and was far more than the foundation disclosed on IRS filings.

In 2002, the Montgomery Advertiser hinted that there was an unknown, dark side to Roy Moore. “Some of those who worked with Moore roll their eyes when asked about him but keep their mouths shut,” Todd Kleffman wrote for the Advertiser, “There are plenty of stories to tell, the longtime secretaries, parole officials and lawyers said, but not on the record and not now, while Moore sits atop the state court system and controls its purse strings.”

Jimmy Hedgspeth, the Etowah County DA, said at the time, “If Roy wasn't the chief justice, I'd tell you anything you want to know. I think we have to have respect for the office, even if we don't like the people who hold it.”

Teresa Jones, who worked with Moore at the District Attorney’s office in Gadsden, said in a tweet, “It was common knowledge about Roy's propensity for teenage girls. I'm appalled that these women are being skewered for the truth.” Other locals in Gadsden say that Moore was banned from the mall for harassing teenage girls.

Looking back, there were plenty of warning signs about Roy Moore. If the Washington Post could hear the whispers about Moore and seek out witnesses to his behavior, why couldn’t opposition researchers from other Republican campaigns? Why didn’t Alabama’s party establishment intervene to spare the state the disgrace that it is currently experiencing?

The answer is that the Republican Party is caught up in irrational populist anger. The party’s voters rejected Luther Strange because he was too corrupt and too connected to the party establishment. They rejected Mo Brooks because he was insufficiently subservient to Donald Trump.

In the end, Alabama Republicans violated the basic rule of William F. Buckley to nominate the most conservative candidate who can win. In Roy Moore, Alabama Republicans picked a candidate who was known to have embraced conspiracy theories, who was vulnerable to questions about his business dealings, who had two failed campaigns for statewide office and who, after winning elections, had failed to fulfill his term of office twice. Even without allegations of sexual misconduct, Moore should have been toxic as a candidate.

Originally published on The Resurgent

No Surprise That Evangelicals Are Standing By Roy Moore

In the wake of last week’s revelations about Alabama Republican Roy Moore, a new poll shows that more than 70 percent of evangelical voters in Alabama still support the man accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl. About half of the evangelicals who still support Moore say that the charges make them more likely to vote Republican, a statistic that shows how little regard Republican voters hold for the mainstream media.

The poll by JMC Analytics found that 37 percent of evangelicals are more likely to vote for Roy Moore in the wake of the sex scandal than before. An additional 34 percent said that the allegations made no difference in their vote. Only 28 percent of evangelicals were less likely to vote for Moore after the revelations. The same poll showed that 38 percent of voters at large were less likely to vote for Moore.

The poll’s findings will be assumed to show hypocrisy on the part of evangelical voters, but this isn’t necessarily true. CNN exit polls show that 56 percent of Protestant voters voted for Donald Trump. In contrast to Trump, Moore’s sex scandal is more easily explained away.

Roy Moore tacitly admitted to Sean Hannity that he dated girls “as young as 17.” At the same time, Moore called the more damaging allegation that he improperly touched a 14-year-old girl “completely false.” In contrast, evangelicals have already voted en masse for Donald Trump, who admitted to sexual assault in a taped conversation on “Access Hollywood.”

In Trump’s case, the tape was made in 2005 and other allegations of sexual misconduct were even more recent. The allegations against Roy Moore are almost 40 years old. Moore has been happily married (to the same woman, unlike Donald Trump) for the past 32 years. Moore’s wife, Kayla, told Breitbart that they met when she was 23.   

With no allegations of sexual misbehavior in more than three decades, it is easy to argue that Roy Moore is a changed man. Christians believe in in the power of God to change hearts and lives. They also believe in repentance and forgiveness. It is much easier to believe that Roy Moore is a changed man who has repented of his long-ago actions than Donald Trump.

The second reason that evangelicals have not abandoned Roy Moore is a simple one. They believe that Democrats are a bigger threat than someone who may have exercised bad – and, in at least one case, criminal – judgment four decades ago.

Democrats have worked painstakingly hard to convince the country that they are no friend to Bible-believing Christians. The list of attacks on Christians by liberal Democrats is long and includes a legal campaign against the Little Sisters of the Poor, political assaults on photographers and bakers who hold a traditional view of marriage, attacks on freedom of speech for pro-life activists and campaigns to remove Christian symbols from nearly aspect of public life. In a viral clip from the 2012 Democratic convention, Democrat delegates even booed the inclusion of God in their party platform.

Roy Moore was directly involved in two incidents which were perceived by Alabama evangelicals to be assaults on their religious liberty. In 2003, Moore was removed from his position as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for his refusal to remove a 10 Commandments monument. Moore worked his way back to the state high court, but was removed again in 2015 after refusing to order probate judges to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Critics might argue that Moore’s actions were self-serving and violated his oath to uphold the rule of law, but they also made him a hero to the state’s evangelical voters.  

Now, after decades of having their religious beliefs attacked by the left, Alabama Christians see their champion, Roy Moore, under assault from the same liberals who have celebrated as courts chipped away at their religious liberty. Moore’s habit of tilting at windmills may not have been successful, but, like Donald Trump, he is viewed as a man who fights back. Many evangelicals will even refuse to believe the charges, in spite of Moore’s admission, because they view the Washington Post and other mainstream media as fake news.

Ultimately, Alabama evangelicals will have to decide between an accused child molester and Democrat. Many of them openly admit that they consider the Democrat to be worse. Considering how Democrats have treated evangelicals, this should not be a surprise.  

Originally published On the Resurgent