New York Times editorial board calls for further investigation into assault allegation against Biden

The New York Times editorial board is calling for further investigation into an allegation of sexual assault against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by a former Senate aide.

The call by the board of one of the country’s most-widely read U.S. newspapers follows Biden on Friday strongly – and for the first time publicly – denying the allegation by Tara Reade, who was an aide for Biden when he was a senator. 

The board, in an op-ed Friday in The Time, calls for further inquiry, while acknowledging inconsistencies in the account of the incident that allegedly occurred in 1993 in the Senate office complex.   

“As is so often the case in such situations, it is all but impossible to be certain of the truth,” the board writes. “But the stakes are too high to let the matter fester – or leave it to be investigated by and adjudicated in the media. Mr. Biden is seeking the nation’s highest office.”

The board also points out that it called for such an inquire when a similar allegation was made during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation process.

The board, a group of opinion journalists separate from The Times newsroom, on Friday acknowledged Biden’s request for the secretary of the Senate to do an extensive search of his record but said: “This is a start, but it does not go far enough. Any serious inquiry must include the trove of records from Mr. Biden’s Senate career that he donated to the University of Delaware.”