Still denying it

In a statement, and then in a lengthy and at times uncomfortable interview with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, Biden pointed to what he described as “inconsistencies” in Reade’s story, saying that her telling of what happened had “changed repeatedly in both small and big ways."

Reade has said that she notified three of Biden’s senior aides about his touching at the time: Then-chief of staff Ted Kaufman, adviser Dennis Toner and Marianne Baker, an executive assistant. All three have gone on the record to say that Reade did not confront them about the issue.

  The Hill

If they did nothing about it at the time, it's no surprise they are denying she told them.

A woman who was Reade’s neighbor in the 1990s came forward this week to say that Reade told her about the allegations of assault at the time. Reade’s brother has also said Reade told him that Biden “had his hand under her clothes at some point.”

Biden was not asked about the corroborating testimony.

I wonder why.

Reade says she filed a complaint with the Senate’s human resources department about Biden’s behavior at the time. Media outlets have not been able to track it down. Reade says she believes it is in Biden’s archives at the University of Delaware. The school will not make the archives public for several years.

Biden on Friday said that if a complaint exists, it would be at the National Archives, and he called on the Secretary of the Archives to “identify any record of the complaint she alleges she filed and make available to the press any such document.”

It's not unheard of for records of scandals to "go missing." If there were any documents, they could have been disposed of by sympathetic Biden staff.

However, under repeated questioning from Brzezinski, Biden repeatedly refused to authorize the University of Delaware to make the records public or to even run a search for Reade’s name within the files.

That's not suspicious.

Biden insisted that if a complaint exists, it would not be kept there. And he worried that making the documents public would give fodder to his critics to distort his record.

“The fact is that there’s a lot of things of speeches I’ve made, interviews I did overseas with people, all those things related to my job, the idea they’d all be made public while I was running for public office, they could be taken out of context," Biden said.

This is insane. If people are voting on a man's merits and history, they should be denied a record???

The other aspect of the interview where Biden struggled centered around the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, who was accused by Christine Blasey Ford of a sexual assault that allegedly took places decades ago.

Many Democrats, including Biden, said that all women should be believed, and approached the claims against Kavanaugh with a presumption of his guilt.

Brzezinski on Friday read Biden’s own statement back to him, in which he said: “You’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”

“Look, from the very beginning, I’ve said that believing women means taking the woman’s claim seriously,” Biden said. “When she steps forward and then vet it, look into it. That’s true in this case as well. Women have a right to be heard and the press should rigorously investigate claims they make. 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 the claims are false.”

Take my word for it.

Biden’s refusal to make his Senate records public will likely be an enduring issue for his campaign.

You think? Trump's going to hound him about it day and night. (Rightly so.)

Reade will appear on Fox News Sunday this weekend to discuss her claims.

This isn't going to go away.

“As a Presidential candidate, I’m accountable to the American people,” Biden said. “We have lived long enough with a President who doesn’t think he is accountable to anyone, and takes responsibility for nothing. That’s not me. I believe being accountable means having the difficult conversations, even when they are uncomfortable. People need to hear the truth.”

But not accountable enough to have his records released..

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: