Donald Trump donor to represent Joe Biden assault accuser Tara Reade

Kit Heren8 May 2020

Tara Reade, the woman who has accused US Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden of assault, will be legally represented by a donor for President Donald Trump.

Douglas Wigdor, who donated to President Trump's 2016 election campaign, says that he will be working for Ms Reade for free and denied that there was any political motivation behind the move.

Mr Biden, who will almost certainly oppose Mr Trump in the election this November, categorically denies the assault, which Ms Reade, his former Senate employee, said took place in 1993.

Mr Wigdor's firm said: "We have decided to take this matter on because every survivor has the right to competent counsel."

President Donald Trump 
AP

Ms Reade, who has said that she has struggled to find a lawyer to represent her, said in an interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly on Thursday that she wanted Mr Biden to drop out of the presidential race.

But Mr Biden, the Vice-President under Barack Obama, denied the allegations again, telling Bay News 9: "The truth is these claims are flat-out false.”

Mr Wigdor has worked on several cases related to sexual harassment and assault, including several accusers of Harvey Weinstein, now serving a prison term for sexual offences.

He also spoke out in favour of Christine Blasey Ford, who came forward in 2018 with historic sexual assault accusation against Brett Kavanaugh, the nominee for the US Supreme Court.

Christine Blasey Ford 
REUTERS

Mr Wigdor donated around $55,000 (£44,000) to Mr Trump's 2016 election campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.

And he said that Ms Reade's struggles to find legal representation might be the result of “politics”, with Democrat-supporting lawyers perhaps reluctant to damage Mr Biden's campaign.

“I think highly of a lot of these people,” he said. “These are my friends and colleagues, people who I respect, but they tend to be Democrats or liberals, and they were not interested, because of that, in representing Tara Reade.”

Ms Reade first accused Mr Biden of touching her inappropriately in 2019.

She later came forward with more serious assault allegations in 2020, around the time that Mr Biden became the presumptive Democrat nominee.

She said she didn't speak out earlier because she was afraid of the criticism that she might get, and was still coming to terms with the alleged incident.

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