Tara Reade, who alleges that President Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 while he was a senator and she was an aide, has filed a lawsuit against the FBI seeking $10 million in damages.
Reade has said that while she worked for Biden, he thrust her against a wall, put a hand up her skirt and sexually penetrated her.
The president has denied the incident took place.
Reade was highly vocal about the sexual assault allegations during the 2020 election cycle. Last year, saying she was in fear for her life, she took refuge in Russia.
The crux of her new legal claim is that the FBI was weaponized against her as a way to discredit her allegations against Biden.
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“The United States should not have a two-tiered justice system,” Reade attorney Jonathan Levy said in a statement, according to Fox News.
Levy referenced recent multimillion-dollar judgments against two prominent Republicans: former President Donald Trump and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“If President Trump and Mr. Giuliani can be assessed tens of millions in damages for their words; a weaponized FBI that seeks to silence, intimidate and eliminate Joe Biden’s victim, Tara Reade, must also be held accountable; failing to do so means our justice and legal system has become an instrument of political oppression and suppression,” the attorney said.
According to Reade’s lawsuit, she “was sexually victimized by then Senator Joseph Biden in 1993. Her case was suppressed by Congressional investigators to protect Senator Biden. When she spoke out again, she was subject to an ongoing FBI Operation detailed below to revictimize her a second time.”
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The suit calls the FBI’s alleged effort against Reade “Operation Cassandra,” an apparent reference to the woman of that name in Greek mythology.
“As a result of the actions carried out in furtherance of Operation Cassandra by the respondent FBI et al., Claimant has suffered severe emotional distress and anxiety, was subjected to death threats, was unlawfully surveilled and had her communications and financial records seized and recorded and was forced to apply for asylum to a third country in credible fear of her life and liberty,” the lawsuit said.
Reade said the FBI effort against her took shape in April 2019 when she began to speak out against Biden in relation to the 1993 allegation. She said she was not affiliated with then-President Donald Trump or any “foreign power” at the time.
According to the lawsuit, FBI Director Christopher Wray ordered an operation “to retaliate, intimidate, discredit and if possible, eliminate her as a threat to President Biden,” violating the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
The claim alleges that under the direction of Wray, the bureau manipulated the media and fed it false information to discredit her.
“Her personal website and emails were hacked by the FBI” in May 2020, the lawsuit says, adding that when she went to the FBI for help with threats she was receiving, the bureau placed spyware on her electronic devices.
Reade likened the tactics deployed against her to those “used in Operation Crossfire Hurricane when the Steele Dossier planted with the media by Hillary Clinton and the FBI was used to obtain a FISA warrant against the Trump campaign.”
“Tara’s communications: phone, wireless, Internet, social media, email were surveilled as was her person and her daughter with who she maintained a close relationship. The active surveillance did not cease until Tara removed herself from the United States in Spring 2023 and her accounts continue to be monitored including communications with her lawyer and daughter,” the lawsuit said.
In 2023, it said, Reade was the target of an attempted kidnapping during which her daughter intervened after seeing an FBI badge in the van to which Reade was being dragged. The alleged kidnappers then left.
According to the lawsuit, harassment spiked last spring as she was considering public testimony about Biden and trying to get her personnel file from her days as his aide.
It said she flew to Russia for a book deal. “While in Moscow, Tara was tipped by former US intelligence operatives that she would be subject to arrest or detention upon her return to the United States for violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act and that she might be harmed or worse,” the lawsuit said.
At that time, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was in contact with her to do a media event, but when Gaetz learned she was in Moscow, “Congressman Gaetz stated that her life was in immediate danger and he feared for her physical safety,” according to the suit.
Reade claimed that even after this event, the FBI sought to persecute her by trying to steal a horse she owned.
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the lawsuit, Fox News reported.
