‘I believe it will have my complaint form, as well as my separation letter and other documents…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Joe Biden‘s campaign reportedly scoured his private Senate records at the University of Delaware library for damaging revelations about his current rape scandal, even though Biden publicly insisted there were no personnel files in them.
He dispatched campaign operatives to comb through the 40 years of files after a former congressional staffer who has long accused him of a 1993 sexual assault began appearing in the national spotlight, according to Business Insider.
Those records may contain information regarding the complaint that Biden’s former staffer, Tara Reade, says she filed against him while he was a senator.
But Biden has refused to unseal those records, telling MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday that doing so could disclose confidential information about past policy deliberations that would damage his campaign.
The records include 1,875 boxes of “photographs, documents, videotapes, and files,” and 415 gigabytes of electronic records, which Biden gave to the University of Delaware in 2012.
These records were supposed to be made public “two yeas after Biden’s last day in elected public office.” But right before Biden announced his candidacy in April 2019, the university changed its mind and said the records would remain sealed until two years after Biden “retires from public life.”
Biden insisted that his Senate records do not contain information about Reade’s allegation, and that any complaint made against him would have been filed with what was then known as the Office of Fair Employment Practices.
That office’s information is stored in the National Archives, Biden said, adding that he is asking the Senate to open the archives.
But a National Archives spokesperson told Business Insider on Friday that “they do not hold records” from the Office of Fair Employment Practices.
Joe Biden said that Tara Reade’s complaint could only be at the National Archives, at what was then called the Office of Fair Employment Practices. But, a National Archives spokesperson told me that they do not hold records from that office.
— Nicole Einbinder (@NicoleEinbinder) May 1, 2020
Reade called on Biden to unseal his Senate records in the interest of transparency.
“I’m calling for the release of the documents being held by the University of Delaware that contain Biden’s staff personnel records because I believe it will have my complaint form, as well as my separation letter and other documents,” Reade told Fox News on Tuesday.
“Maybe if other staffers that have tried to file complaints would come to light—why are they under seal?” she continued. “And why won’t they be released to the public?”