The Associated Press published an article about their interview with Tara Reade earlier today. The original headline read “AP Exclusive: Harassment, assault absent in Biden complaint.”

In the excerpt below, the AP reports that Reade said she had not explicitly accused Biden of sexual assault or harassment.

Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who alleges Joe Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years ago, says she filed a limited report with a congressional personnel office that did not explicitly accuse him of sexual assault or harassment.

“I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” Reade said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. “I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.”

Reade said she described her issues with Biden but “the main word I used — and I know I didn’t use sexual harassment — I used ‘uncomfortable.’ And I remember ‘retaliation.’”

Tara Reade says a Senate report she filed against Joe Biden didn’t refer to sexual harassment or assault. https://t.co/J3B4PIIUdp

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 2, 2020

Note: Before I continue, I’d like to say for the record that I am completely neutral on this story. Obviously none of us have any idea if this is true or not, but the call into Larry King Live from Reade’s late mother caught my attention.

The point I’d like to make is that terms like this really weren’t used much in the early 1990s, so that fact that Reade did not use them when she filed her complaint carries far less meaning than it would in today’s workplace.

The L.A. Times picked up on it.

Tara Reade says her 1993 complaint against Joe Biden did not accuse him of assault https://t.co/lAQs6cEE1X

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 2, 2020

So did intellectual giant Jennifer Rubin and the pompous and intolerant Joe Scarborough.

less credible by the moment… https://t.co/cEIeKT6EvK

— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) May 2, 2020

Big developments since @Morning_Joe interview yesterday:

1. Biden accuser cancels interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News.
2. Now says her complaints did not complain of sexual harassment or assault. https://t.co/jbq0RVbLDe

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) May 2, 2020

Anyway, after seeing the headline and likely the comments and responses, Reade may have felt the title was misleading.

This is false. https://t.co/w4yXGI1DQm

— taratweets ( Alexandra Tara Reade) (@ReadeAlexandra) May 2, 2020

And that’s when the AP changed the headline, which now reads: “Reade: ‘I didn’t use sexual harassment’ in Biden complaint”

I agree. And apparently, so did quite a few others. Many of the commenters pointed out that six people have now corroborated Tara Reade’s story compared to zero for the woman/child Christine Blasey Ford.

Here are some of the other responses on Twitter:

This @AP headline is incredibly misleading. Whether or not Tara Reade used the word “harassment” in her alleged complaint, what she describes here fits the legal definition of harassment. This was 1993; “harassment” had barely just entered the lexicon.

Headline vs. What the article *actually* says:
Tara Reade says she didn’t accuse Biden of assault in ‘93 because she was *afraid* to do so, not because it didn’t happen

At least there is some contemporaneous evidence that something actually happened with Tara Reade. There was no such evidence to support any of the crazy allegations against Kavanaugh.

I’d say that “I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” is considered sexual harassment whether you use the term or not.

The article says that Tara said she didn’t explicitly use the terms ‘sexual harrasment’ or ‘sexual assault’ in the report, but the report has allegations that obviously amount to harrasment. So yeah that headline is incredibly misleading

Thank you for clarifying. They’re really trying to smear you right now.

what a terrible headline and tweet. the article clearly states that, even if you didn’t use the term, you made a report against sexual harassment & retaliation. whether or not you shared every single detail, know that many of us still believe you, support you, and have your back.

 

H/T: Brett T, Twitchy