An eighth person has come forward who can corroborate some of Tara Reade’s accusations that Joe Biden assaulted her.
In an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, a man named Joseph Backholm said Reade told her “I was sexually assaulted by someone you would know.”
While Backholm said he didn’t ask who it was he told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he “actually was assuming it was not Joe Biden when she said it.”
The two attended law school together at Seattle University between 2002 and 2004.
Backholm recanted that the two were friends who would regularly see each other during law school. Reade confirmed to the Daily Caller that they were friends and she told him about the incident.
In case you haven’t been following Reade’s accusations against Joe Biden, here is some background:
“[A] woman named Tara Reade accused presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden of sexual assault. An incident she alleges took place in Biden’s office in the 1990s when she was a staffer for Biden.
She detailed the incident to Krystal Ball from The Hill, “He was at first talking to someone, they went away. He said come here. And then when I gave him the gym bag it happened in one mounting almost and he had me against the wall. And then his hands were down my skirt and up my skirt.”
“[He] entered me with his hands as was trying to kiss me and sing to me,” she continued.
“He was trying to kiss me as I was pulling away. What I remember about that time is feeling really shocked [or] surprised. There was no real conversation right beforehand. There was no real precursor. This just happened.” she explained.
“I was obviously pulling away. He pulled back and said ‘hey man, I heard you liked me’ …something to that effect. And that’s what kind of jolted me. Like I was trying to think what I did wrong to bring that on me. And then…he looked angry or irritated with me…that’s when I knew I was in a very difficult position,” Reade continued.”
In a separate article from the Daily Caller, Peter Hasson’s analysis states that Reade has more corroborating evidence than the Blasey-Ford/Kavanuagh accusations:
Ford’s accusation against Kavanaugh, which earned support from virtually every high-profile Democrat, lacked that level of corroboration. There’s no evidence that Ford and Kavanaugh ever met in high school — the time of the alleged assault — and her primary corroborating witness, Leland Keyser, ultimately said she didn’t have confidence in Ford’s account.
Other than Keyser’s account, the biggest piece of corroborating evidence Ford had against Kavanaugh was the result of discussions nearly 30 years after the alleged assault was said to have taken place.
Notes from therapy sessions Ford and her husband had in 2012 and 2013 show that she discussed an alleged high school assault, though she didn’t name the alleged perpetrator. Other friends said they’d had discussions with Ford about the alleged assault, though not before 2012.
Reade’s case easily surpasses that level of corroboration.
It’s unlikely Backholm’s corroboration will get much media play given the current media landscape.
