Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he has been falsely accused of sexual assault. Period.
The former Vice President appeared from home on MSNBC's Morning Joe to respond to the allegation by former Senate aid Tara Reade. "No, it is not true. I am saying unequivocally it didn't happen," Biden told Mika Brzezinski, who conducted the interview. Earlier Biden released a statement containing his denial of the accusation.
He said he does not remember her making any complaint and didn't know why "all of a sudden" after 27 years it was being raised. Biden said he had not reached out to her.
Biden was confident no complaint had ever been filed at the National Archives alleging the encounter, he said, and has called for a search of those records. "I am not worried about it [the allegation] at all," he said.
He does not want his papers at the University of Delaware to be searched for any record of a complaint because it contains information about conversations with the President that he did not think should be made public while he is in public office or seeking it.
To the best of his knowledge, no complaint has ever been filed against him by anyone. "There is nothing for me to hide," he said.
Mika Brzezinski, who conducted the interview, pointed out that Biden had said about the allegations against then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh that the presumption about the essence of what an accuser said should be that it was real, and whether he didn't think that should apply here as well.
He said that he believed an accuser's allegations should be investigated, but that there was nothing to find in his case.
Brzezinski continued to remind him of statements he had made about the Kavanaugh allegations and the need to treat them as true.
Biden said women should be given the benefit of the doubt and the presumption the charge is true, "but then you have to look at the facts." The fact, he said, is that it did not happen, period.
