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His campaign has strongly denied it but pressure is mounting on Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential hopeful, to personally respond to a sexual assault allegation made by a former Senate aide.
The presumptive Democratic nominee has been accused by Tara Reade of assaulting her in 1993, when she was a 29-year-old staff assistant in the office of Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware.
According to Reade, the assault took place in August 1993 in a hallway on Capitol Hill.
"We were alone, and it was the strangest thing," Reade said in a late March interview on the Katie Halper Show podcast.
"There was no, like, exchange, really, he just had me up against the wall."
"His hands were on me and underneath my clothes and, yeah, he went, he went down my skirt but then up inside it and he penetrated me with his fingers," she said.
Reade has since recounted her story to several other media outlets and, according to U.S. press reports, she filed a complaint with the Washington police in early April but did not name Biden.
Kate Bedingfield, Biden's deputy campaign manager and communications director, issued a statement dismissing the allegation.
"Vice President Biden has dedicated his public life to changing the culture and the laws around violence against women," Bedingfield said in an April 13 statement.
"What is clear about this claim: it is untrue. This absolutely did not happen," she said.
The denial has, however, done little to calm media coverage of the claims, which have drowned out other news about Biden, such as his search for a running mate, who he has pledged will be a woman.
Biden has been confined at his Delaware home because of the coronavirus pandemic.
There is no comment so far from the 77-year-old former vice-president himself.
(AFP)
