What must it be like for Tara Reade, the woman who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, to go public with her story?
Rachel Crooks has an idea.
The university administrator and former statehouse candidate is one of at least a dozen women who have accused President Trump of sexual misconduct. And like Ms. Reade, Ms. Crooks shared her story when Mr. Trump was running for office, hoping her experience would offer a fuller picture of the then-candidate and insight into his character.
“I feel like our accusations probably mimic each other a lot,” Ms. Crooks, 37, told The Blade in an interview. “I hope she’s feeling somewhat relieved just to let her story off her chest, even though she maybe told people at that time. I’m sure it’s been a burden. And then to watch someone ascend in the political race while you knew something about him, something that makes him not worthy for that office — yeah, it’s troubling.”
A presidential contest where both candidates have been accused of sexual misconduct — Ms. Reade is one of eight women who say Mr. Biden, the expected Democratic nominee, kissed, hugged, or touched them in ways that made them uncomfortable — creates a fraught situation for survivors of sexual assault and Democrats in general. Mr. Biden has vigorously denied Ms. Reade’s claim.
Ms. Reade has called on Mr. Biden to drop out of the race and said she won’t vote in the national election, while Ms. Crooks said she doesn’t know if she can bring herself to vote for him in November.
“I would probably vote for Biden if he didn’t have this tarnished history with these sexual allegations,” she said. “Other than that, I would have no problem. That’s the thing that sealed the deal in terms of likely not voting for him.”
Other women, particularly survivors of sexual assault, may be weighing the same decision, said Rosa Beltré, executive director of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence.
For some Democrats, it comes down to supporting the better of two imperfect candidates. Others who want to deny Mr. Trump a second term might view elevating Mr. Biden as the worse option, she said.
“There’s a sense of responsibility,” Ms. Beltré said. “Am I contributing to putting someone who sexually assaults in another position of power? People are going to just prefer not to vote, especially because it can be very triggering.”
At the moment, Ms. Crooks, the director of international student recruitment at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, doesn’t know what to do in November. She voted for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in Ohio’s presidential primary, and also supported him in 2016.
“I don’t necessarily have a plan, but of course I would not vote for Trump,” said Ms. Crooks, who accused the President of forcibly kissing her when she was a receptionist at a real estate investment and development group at Trump Tower in 2006. Mr. Trump denied the allegation in 2018 tweet, asking why someone would do something like that in a public space with security cameras.
“I don’t see myself voting for Biden either, so we’ll see,” Ms. Crooks said. “We’ve got some time. Maybe things will change before then.”
Should Mr. Biden drop out? Ms. Crooks said there's no good answer. But it’s obvious, she said, both candidates are flawed.
“The overall disappointing thing in this entire election is these are the two men we’re putting up as choices,” she said. “If people want Biden to drop out, Trump should drop out. At this point, we don’t have good options.
“I’m sorry we’ve gotten to this point,” she continued, noting that allegations about Mr. Biden existed before he became the presumptive nominee. “If in his heart these things are true, he should not be running for office in this particular year. He should not be our candidate. But I don’t think that’s likely to happen, so there’s no good answer.”
Mr. Biden has denied Ms. Reade’s claim that in 1993, while she worked in Mr. Biden’s Senate office as a staff assistant, he propositioned her and then sexually assaulted her. Subsequent reporting has corroborated some elements of Ms. Reade’s story.
“It’s not true,” Mr. Biden said earlier this month on MSNBC in his first public comments about the allegation. “I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened.”
When asked by The Blade for further comment, Mr. Biden’s campaign provided a statement from deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield released last week that pokes holes in Ms. Reade’s story.
“Every day, more and more inconsistencies arise,” she said. “Women must receive the benefit of the doubt. They must be able to come forward and share their stories without fear of retribution or harm — and we all have a responsibility to ensure that. At the same time, we can never sacrifice the truth. And the truth is that these allegations are false and that the material that has been presented to back them up, under scrutiny, keeps proving their falsity.”
Last year, Ms. Reade, 56, accused the former vice president of inappropriate touching, but expanded her claim in March to include the alleged assault.
In her first on-air interview since Mr. Biden denied her claim, Ms. Reade told NBC anchor Megyn Kelly on May 8 that Mr. Biden should withdraw from the race.
“You and I were there, Joe Biden. Please step forward and be held accountable. And if you feel that you can address this in a real way, then you know and I know that you should step down,” she said. “You should not be running on character for the president of the United States.”
Like Ms. Reade, Ms. Crooks has framed sharing her story about Mr. Trump as a responsibility to speak truth to power. She said it also prompted her to run for an Ohio House seat as a Democrat in 2018, an experience that was instructive but one she doesn’t plan to repeat. She’s focused now on finishing her doctoral degree in higher education administration at the University of Toledo.
While the backlash Ms. Crooks faced at the time she came forward against Mr. Trump was intense, she doesn’t regret the decision, even though for a period the spotlight burned and the media requests were unending. Her experience culminated in a lengthy profile in the Washington Post, in which she described repeatedly trying to get people to listen to her story.
“The hardest thing I learned throughout it all is just how little character some people had. You lost friends and support from places you thought you had it. But you gain it from places you never expected it,” said. “So I hope [Reade] is experiencing the good things about that, too.”
And as another woman’s story about a presidential candidate’s alleged sexual misconduct takes center stage, Ms. Crooks can’t say she misses the attention.
“I’m not upset that things have quieted down,” she said.
First Published May 12, 2020, 7:41 p.m.
