Jules Witcover

WASHINGTON — The former Joe Biden Senate staffer who has accused him of sexual assault 27 years ago now says he should drop out of the 2020 presidential race, on the cusp of his nomination as the Democratic candidate. Other women in the MeToo Movement and a female Washington Post columnist have chimed in, though no hard evidence has been produced beyond the words of two of her relatives and a couple of friends retelling what she had told them.

The accuser, Tara Reade, told a Fox News interviewer last week that she would tell Biden he should “step forward and be held accountable,” and then via Twitter that “you should not be running for President of the United States.”

Asked if she wanted hm to quit the race, she said: “I wish he would, but he won’t.” She said later she didn’t want an apology from him, adding “I think it’s a little late.” And although she later said “I’m not here to influence a national election,” it could be out of her hands now.

The former vice president at least twice in television interviews last week flatly denied the allegation, while reiterating in a Tampa interview that “women have a right to be heard and the press should rigorously investigate claims like these. I’ll always uphold that principle. But in the end, in every case, the truth is what matters. And in this case the truth is these claims are flat out false. False.”

It has been reported that Reade was a supporter of the presidential candidacy of Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who last month dropped out of the Democratic race after leading Biden by a wide margin in the first weeks of the campaign. A Biden campaign spokesperson has cited an Associated Press interview of last year in which Reade said of Biden: “I wasn’t scared of him, that he was going to take me in a room or anything like that kind of vibe.”

Reade also is quoted as saying she would testify under oath, but when asked if she would take a polygraph test, she replied: “I’m not a criminal. Joe Biden should take the polygraph. … So I will take one if Joe Biden takes one.”

Reade’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, identified as a supporter of President Trump, declared: “Our representation of Ms. Reade has absolutely nothing to do with politics.”

Thus has the already tortured path of Joe Biden to his third try for his party’s presidential nomination encountered an unanticipated roadblock after overcoming the customary political challenges.

It is particularly ironic for a non-drinking, straight-arrow family man like Biden, with a 43-year marriage, as a co-sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act, to face this kind of personal allegation. He has called on the National Archives to make public all his relevant papers, and he has declared that those at his alma mater University of Delaware contain no personnel matters.

Now it should be left to the voters to look at the man’s public service over nearly half a century in Delaware, in Washington, in the U.S. Senate and as former President Barack Obama’s foreign policy envoy, to decide his qualifications and worthiness to assume the presidency, now in the hands of an incompetent and corrupt amateur.

The MeToo Movement has come a long way from the days when violence against women had little recourse to justice in the courts and in other avenues of public life. In this instance, not only women’s rights are at stake, but also the welfare of the nation now in irresponsible hands, in determining the truth of the allegation against Biden beyond a shadow of doubt.

Unless much more persuasive evidence of wrongdoing against the prospective Democratic presidential nominee comes to light between now and the election, his wide and impressive record of public service warrants voter support, especially considering the alternative of a proven serial liar in the Oval Office. The burden of proof remains with the accuser, and so far it has not been met.

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Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcovercomcast.net.