1993 phone call to Larry King offers new evidence in support of Biden's accuser

An improbable piece of evidence has emerged to possibly support former Joe Biden staffer Tara Reade's claims that the Democratic vice presidential candidate assaulted her when she worked for him 27 years ago in 1993. 

Reade, who worked for then-Senator Biden on Capitol Hill for around eight months starting in December of 1992, claims that Biden sexually assaulted her in the spring of 1993, forcing her against a wall and digitally penetrating her without her consent. She claims that Biden said to her after the assault: "You're nothing to me, nothing." 

Biden has denied the allegation. Investigators have not yet announced any directly corroborating evidence to support Reade's claims, though the New York Times said Reade told at least one friend about the incident in 1993 shortly after it happened. 

Yet this week a possible new piece of evidence emerged in the controversy from an unlikely source: A 1993 video clip of Larry King's CNN television show, "Larry King Live." In the footage, King takes a call from an anonymous woman who says she lives in San Luis Obispo, California. The caller asks King "what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington."

"My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him," the caller says.

Reade confirmed to media this week that the voice was that of her mother's. Property records indicate her mother, Jeanette Altimus, did live in San Luis Obispo at the time the call was placed. 

Reade had previously said she remembered her mother calling into the program, recalling that Altimus referred to Biden as a "prominent senator."

Washington, D.C. police said this week that they are conducting an "active, ongoing investigation" into the claims against Biden. The assault would fall under the authority of D.C. law enforcement, though the statute of limitations on the alleged crime would have already expired by now, preempting any prosecution against Biden by authorities.