A former staffer of Joe Biden has defected to Russia, telling state media in Moscow she feels 'safe' there after accusing the now-US President of sexual assault.
Tara Reade claims she was sexually assaulted by Biden in 1993 while she was working in his congressional office.
She worked as an assistant to Biden when she was 29 years old when he was a Senator for Delaware.
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But Reade came out of the woodwork during Biden's 2020 presidential campaign when she accused the Democrat of assaulting her in a Capitol Hill corridor 27 years prior.
She then vanished from the public eye... until now.
She has popped up alongside Kremlin spy Maria Butina, answering questions levied at her by Russian state media over the course of several hours.
During the press conference, Butina vowed to discuss the likelihood of getting Reade a Russian citizenship.
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Butina urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to 'fast track her citizenship request'.
The Russian spy-turned-politician was sentenced to 18 months jail in the US back in 2019 for conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent, CNN reports.
She now serves in the Russian parliament in Putin’s own party.
During the media conference, Reade revealed she decided to relocate to Russia in the wake of death threats she received this year after she reiterated her historical accusations against the US President.
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She said on social media she would 'testify under oath in Congress if asked' about the alleged encounter.
"When I got off the plane in Moscow, for the first time in a very long time I felt safe, and I felt heard, and I felt respected," Reade told Sputnik.
"That has not happened in my own country."
She added that she would now like to call the Russian Federation home.
"[I'd] like to apply for citizenship in Russia, from the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin... I do promise to be a good citizen," she said, adding she hoped to also retain her US citizenship.
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She added that there is an 'illusion of Russia as an enemy' that is 'propagated by a few Washington elites who are determined to cause problems'.
So far, there has been no evidence to verify Reade’s claims of receiving death threats.
As for the alleged 1993 assault, Biden rejected her claims in an interview with MSNBC in 2020.
The now-President said 'unequivocally, it never, never happened'.
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He added: "It didn’t. It never happened."
Topics: US News, Russia, Politics, Joe Biden, World News, News