Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams says she does not have the “discretion” to release records regarding a complaint reportedly made against former Vice President Joe Biden while he was a senator.
In a statement to USA Today on Monday, Adams’ office said, “Based on the law’s strict confidentiality requirements… and the Senate’s own direction that disclosure of Senate Records is not authorized if prohibited by law.”
The statement continued, “Senate Legal Counsel advises that the Secretary has no discretion to disclose any such information as requested in Vice President Biden’s letter of May 1.”
On Friday, Biden asked Adams to find and release any records regarding a 1993 complaint from former aide Tara Reade — who accused Biden of sexually assaulting her.
“If there was ever any such complaint, the record will be there,” Biden wrote in a statement.
He added, “I am requesting that the Secretary of the Senate ask the Archives to identify any record of the complaint she alleges she filed and make available to the press any such document.”
Biden denied Reade’s accusations in a statement and an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday. He said, “It is not true. I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened. And it didn’t. It never happened.”
Reade said she filed a complaint with a Senate personnel office in 1993 about sexual harassment and retaliation — but not assault.
“I filed a complaint re sexual harassment and retaliation, but I am not sure what explicit words on that intake form until we all see it again,” she wrote in a text to NBC News on Saturday.
