What we learned about Biden’s Senate offices in the 1990s

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• Judy Woodruff:

  Two months ago, allegations arose accusing former Vice President Joe Biden of sexual assault.

  Tara Reade, Reade who in 1993 worked in the office of then Senator Biden, said that he assaulted her.

  Biden has categorically denied the allegations, which now face examination from the public.

  Our own Dan Bush and Lisa Desjardins did extensive reporting, talking to 74 former Biden staffers to learn more about the vice president, the culture in his offices and their thoughts on the allegations.

  The two join me now to share what they have learned.

  Hello to both of you.

  And I'm going to turn to you both, but, Lisa, to you to begin.

  Take us through what you did and what you learned in all from talking to all these people.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes, Judy, we reached out to — tried to reach out to some 200 former Biden staffers.

  Of that, we were able to have in-depth interviews with some 74 of them. Now, 62 of these former staffers were women. And to a person, Judy, those women told us they had never had any experience that was uncomfortable with the former vice president or ever heard of any experience that was uncomfortable or, worse, many of them said they had spent time with him alone during work hours and that they had — they wanted to say that they — most of them didn't want to reflect on whether on what Tara Reade is saying was true or not.

  But they did say that it did not reflect their experiences at all, especially in a workplace that Dan and I both heard from them they felt empowered women.

• Daniel Bush:

  That's right, Lisa.

  I would add to that also that a lot of the former staffers we spoke to said that, while they never felt uncomfortable, they did confirm what we all know about Joe Biden, which is his history, his habit of reaching out, making physical contact with people he speaks to, touching them.

  We spoke to people who said at the time of this it was known about Biden that he would rub your shoulders, squeeze your shoulders, give people hugs and kisses.

  And, again, while the people we spoke to say they themselves didn't feel uncomfortable, they did acknowledge that former Vice President Biden doesn't seem to have strong — a strong social signal in terms of when that kind of contact is wanted or not.

  That came up last year on the campaign trail and now again here.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And, Lisa, you also uncovered, frankly, new details that reflect on Tara Reade's allegation, that she says she was forced out of the office because she complained about being uncomfortable about the sexual incident.

  Tell us exactly what you learned about that and why it matters.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Well, Tara Reade says that she complained about previous sexual harassment in the office and that, after she complained, she said she was retaliated against, and in a couple of ways, and that that eventually forced her out of the office.

  We spoke to the man who shared an office with her. His name is Ben Savage. They worked together on constituent mail. Ben Savage told us that, actually, it was a performance problem with Tara Reade that he himself raised to supervisors. In some cases, he said she was throwing out constituent — important records of constituent mail, and that the problem was bad enough that he raised it to supervisors.

  He believes that's why she left.

  And here's some of the interview that I had with him over the phone.

• Ben Savage:

  And of all the people who held that position, she's the only one during my time there who couldn't necessarily keep up, who found — or who found it frustrating.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  We, of course, reached out to Tara Reade. She declined our request for an interview.

  But her attorney did give us detailed responses to our questions, among them to this exact issue.

  He said that story is flat wrong. Here is what Doug Wigdor wrote us in response. He wrote: "Ms. Reade recalls there was a lot of nitpicking regarding her performance in the office. She was also very nervous at that point and distracted, so it's possible that, from time to time, there was a mistake made. But her performance had nothing to do with her termination."

  Judy, we do know that Reade worked in that office for about nine months.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And, Dan, you also learned new information from Reade's attorney about the location that Tara Reade says is where Joe Biden assaulted her. So tell us about that.

• Daniel Bush:

  That's right, Judy.

  Reade's attorney provided us with new information about this assault, this alleged assault, saying that Reade claims that it took place somewhere between the Russell Building, where Biden had an office at the time, and the U.S. Capitol Building.

  We want to show you what these spaces look like. So this is the hallway where Biden's office was. It's essentially unchanged to now. To get to the Capitol, you go down a flight of stairs, and then take a tunnel, where there's a subway that takes lawmakers to the Capitol Building.

  Now, anybody who had been to this part of the Capitol knows that there are a lot of people moving through these spaces, especially when Congress is in session, lawmakers, their aides, reporters. There's a police presence as well.

  And what a lot of these former Biden staffers told us is, look, these are public places. If this allegation is true, if it took place, it would have been extremely brazen, Judy, because the likelihood it would have been seen by someone was very high.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And, separately from this, Lisa, Tara Reade has identified other details of what occurred during that time.

  Take us through what you learned when you talked to these other staffers about those.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes, Judy.

  Some of these accounts corroborate what she's saying. Let's look at a couple of things. First, she said that the vice president reached up her skirt when she was bringing him a gym bag on this path that Dan described.

  We know that the vice president or the former — the senator at the time did go to the gym. Many staffers told us that, and that Reade's job is one that would have run errands, for example.

  Another thing that comes up that is Tara Reade says that she was asked to serve drinks at a fund-raiser because the then senator liked her legs, liked her looks. Staffers told us that, actually, that's contrary to their experience, that, at that time, people who worked there — and we spoke to about 20 of them — said junior staff and no staff really was asked to go to fund-raisers.

  That was a campaign function only. And, moreover, two men who were junior staffers at that time with Reade recall — or around the time that Reid was there — recall that Biden had a policy that he asked men to do menial tasks, like bring him coffee or drive him, specifically because he didn't want women to be seen as serving him.

  And one more thing, Judy. Reade claimed that she was admonished for how she dressed by a supervisor, and that that was part of the retaliation.

  Judy, we can confirm from a staffer who was with Reade at the time and didn't want to be named that she remembers that conversation. She remembers Reade telling her about the admonishment about her dress. That is something that we have confirmed.

  Now, there are different opinions. Reade believes there was no cause for that admonishment, that it was made up and it was retaliation, that her dress was normal and professional.

  But three co-workers said, no, they felt that it was not professional. We raise that only because it speaks to this issue of retaliation and kind of what was going on in the office toward her.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Now, in addition to all this, you both looked at the culture in 1993, what was going on at that time with regard to women, women working, women working on Capitol Hill.

  What did you find about that and about how Joe Biden was seen in that period?

  Lisa?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes.

  Judy, this was not just any time or any senator. Joe Biden around that time was writing the Violence Against Women Act. He was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. And in the months just before when this attack is alleged to have occurred, just a few months earlier, was when he chaired the Anita Hill hearing on sexual harassment.

  He's criticized to this day for not allowing other witnesses to corroborate her. But also at that time, Judy, there was a real culture that we heard from many of the female staffers at the time who were there of men feeling that they could put their hands on them, that it was pervasive, sexual harassment in many offices.

  Senator Bob Packwood, who later would leave under a shame because of allegations of sexual misconduct with his staffers, was present.

  Judy, these staffers described a list of senators to stay away from, senators you wouldn't get in the elevator with, like Packwood. And they said those who worked for Biden — and we talked to some who did not work for Biden — said that Biden was not on that list, that he was regarded as someone that had women high in his office.

  However, he was known as someone that would put his hands on you, but not this list of sort of more egregious, stay-away-from senators.

• Daniel Bush:

  And just to underscore that, Judy, just as Lisa is saying, this was commonplace, as a lot of aides told us.

  And they gave us specific anecdotes either of treatment of women that they saw themselves, that others told them, or that they even experienced. One woman described someone — a man coming up when she was a young staffer, rubbing her shoulders in a way that made her feel very uncomfortable.

  Another staffer told us about walking into an office setting where a female deputy chief of staff was sitting in a senator's lap. We spoke to someone else who asked to be named who described a sitting senator in the elevator with his arm around a young female staffer's waist.

  So, this is the kind of culture that was in place in the Senate around the time that we're talking about.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Well, the story is so important, all these stories very important.

  You have done some extensive and excellent reporting.

  Dan Bush, Lisa Desjardins, we thank you.