Tara Reade, the woman who accused President Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her, is seeking to obtain Russian citizenship with the assistance of a Russian spy.
Reade, who worked briefly as an aide under then-senator Biden, accused the president of sexual assault during his 2020 campaign. Prior to the election, Reade called on Biden to release his Senate office’s personnel records, which she claimed would corroborate her sexual assault allegations. The records were never released.
Now, Reade is defecting to the Russian Federation. She claims, seemingly without evidence, that she would be in danger should she stay in the United States.
"[A]s far as like going to another safe haven," Reade said, "I mean, there are many Americans here, ... there are people here that are coming to Russia—much like back in the day when Soviet Union people defected over to the U.S.—now you have the opposite. Now you have U.S. and European citizens looking for safe haven here. And luckily, the Kremlin is accommodating. So we're lucky."
Reade, in a statement to Russian state press, thanked Maria Butina for helping her through the process of obtaining Russian citizenship.
Butina was convicted in 2018 of acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Russia in the United States. Butina, at the behest of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party, tried to get the Trump campaign to communicate with the Russian government and embedded herself in conservative activist groups with the aim of advancing Russian interests.
Butina is petitioning Putin to expedite Reade’s citizenship request.