(Tara Reade) 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. She had what she recalls now as an “absurd” thought. “I remember thinking, where’s the gym bag? Because he had taken it in his hand, but all of a sudden it wasn’t in his hands and his hands were where they weren’t supposed to be,” she said.
Reade said that her impression was that Biden believed he had consent, and was surprised at the rejection, but that she had done nothing to give him that impression. “There was no flirtation, he had no consent. He was by my ears when he said, ‘Do you wanna go somewhere else?’” She pushed him off and he stepped back, looking surprised, she recalled, and flashing a huge smile.
“‘Come on, man,’” she said he told her. “‘I heard you liked me.’”
“He had that smile he gets, but his eyes were not smiling,” she said.
“You’re fine,” she recalled he said, grabbing her by her shoulders. As he walked away, he pointed back, “You’re fine.”
Colin Bastable 