Tara Reade, the woman who levelled charges of sexual assault against the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden asked him to drop out of the presidential race. She added that she is ready to take a polygraph about the alleged encounter if he would, as per Agence France Presse report.
Reade came out with her testimony in March alleging that Biden had molested her in a Capitol Hill corridor 27 years ago when she was a 29-year-old aide in the then senator’s office.
The recently surfaced accusation is the biggest imbroglio of Biden's presidential campaign. However, the nominee has denied the allegations and said: “No, it is not true. I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened,” Biden told MSNBC in an interview when asked about the accusation of molesting his former aide in 1993, which his campaign had also previously denied.
"Joe Biden, please step forward and be held accountable. You should not be running on character for the president of the United States," Reade told journalist Megyn Kelly in a clip released on Thursday.
"You want him to withdraw?" asks Kelly, a former Fox News anchor, and NBC talk show host.
"I wish he would, but he won't," Reade said, adding: "I think it's a little late" for an apology.
It was Reade's first on-camera interview since Biden, 77, released a statement Friday saying the incident "never happened."
Reade, in the interview, told that she had informed her ex-husband about it when the incident took place in 1993. However, she has not produced the complaint she apparently filed with a congressional personnel office in 1993. The 1996 court document, obtained by the San Luis Obispo Tribune, does not say Biden committed the harassment, nor does it mention Reade's more recent and serious allegations of sexual assault, AFP reported.
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