Some former colleagues and landlords of Tara Reade, the former Joe Biden staffer who has accused him of sexual assault, say she is not to be trusted.
“You can use these words: manipulative, deceitful, user,” California attorney Kelly Klett, who rented Reade a room in her home in 2018, told Politico in a deep dive into Reade’s past.
“She has a problem,” Lynn Hummer, the owner of a horse sanctuary where Reade was a volunteer, said. “I do think she’s a liar.”
But the five named witnesses who criticize Reade in the story have had legal tangles with her, including disputes over rent and veterinary bills, Reade’s attorney Douglas Wigdor said.
“If the assertion is that someone who has lied to their landlord because they don’t have the money to pay rent so then they lied about a sexual assault, I don’t think that is fair journalism,” Wigdor told Politico.
Several of the people said that Reade had spoken well of Biden.
“It was positive and in a bragging sense,” Klett said. “There was never one allegation against Joe Biden that was disparaging.”
Biden has denied Reade’s allegation that he pinned her against a wall in 1993 and assaulted her.