Ilhan Omar believes Tara Reade's rape charge against Biden but will STILL vote for him in 2020 elections
Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar has revived the Tara Reade sexual assault allegations case against her party’s presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden saying she believes the former. The 56-year-old Reade recently accused Biden of raping her when they two were alone in a Capitol Hill office way back in 1993. She was a Senate aide to Biden, who was a senator from Delaware then. Politically, however, Omar was still planning to vote for the former vice president to see incumbent Donald Trump out of the White House.
The 37-year-old controversial member of the "Squad" told Britain's Sunday Times: "I do believe Reade. Justice can be delayed, but should never be denied." Omar, along with many of her fellow "Squad" members, endorsed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for president but the veteran eventually lost the race to Biden who is waiting to be officially nominated by his party as the candidate for the November 3 election.
Omar told the newspaper that if it were up to her, Biden wouldn’t be the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. But when her support for Reade was criticized on Twitter by Alice Evans, an English-American actress and wife of Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd, Omar said she still plans to vote for Biden to see the end of Trump.
Anything to defeat Trump
"Believing survivors is consistent with my values. Yes, I endorsed against Biden and I didn't pick him as our nominee. With that said, in this interview I did on May 6th, we talked about that and quotes aren’t always in context. I will vote for him and help him defeat Trump," Omar said in her tweet in response to Evans who called the Minnesota Congresswoman’s take in the interview "terrible".
"We can’t fend off perceived attacks with attacks on others. This is the most important election cycle of our lifetimes and we aren't going to have a chance if we don't spend our energy in mobilizing and building enthusiasm against Trump. That’s the goal we should all be united on," Omar added.
Reade alleged in March that Biden held her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers and then allegedly humiliated her with sharp words. While she slammed top Democratic leader Hillary Clinton for having endorsed Biden and accused the mainstream media of not focusing much on the matter, Biden has been denying the charges over the past several weeks and even told MSNBC in April that anybody who believed Reade probably shouldn't vote for him.
"I wouldn't vote for me if I believed Tara Reade," the 77-year-old said. Reade’s legal proceedings received a blow last Friday, May 22, when her attorney Douglas Wigdor dropped her as a client after new details emerged about her past, including questions over whether she presented false information about her education.
Wigdor, a Trump donor who has represented alleged victims of Harvey Weinstein and Bill O’Reilly, did not give details on why he was not representing Reade any more but said the decision was linked to the veracity of her claims. He still sympathized with Reade saying the media hasn't been just towards handling her case. Some of the prominent women members of the Democratic Party, however, did not stand by Reade's charges.
Meanwhile, Omar has been endorsed by Minnesota DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) Party to run in the August primary election for the Minneapolis Congressional seat which has been held by the Dems for a long time. Omar, who first became a member of the House in 2018, will seek re-election in November this year.