Self-proclaimed whistleblower

American journalist and columnist for RT Tara Reade has been pledging allegiance to the Kremlin since the beginning of the war. Now she’s asked Putin for citizenship

Last week, 59-year-old American journalist and blogger Tara Reade came to Moscow where she held a press conference about alleged abuse from the US government. She mentioned that after landing in Russia’s capital, she felt safe “for the first time in a very long time”.

Tara Reade first made headlines in 2020 after she accused now-President of the US Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her while she worked in his congressional office. Reade felt that her life was at risk in the United States as a result of her sexual misconduct allegations against Biden, something that the White House claims is “absolutely false”. According to CBS News, Reade was tipped off “by a Republican lawmaker” that “she was in physical danger”, and slapped with a slew of threats including death and imprisonment. Novaya-Europe takes a closer look at Tara Reade and her role in Russia’s propaganda machine.

Reade after Biden

Tara Reade briefly worked as a senate aide to Joe Biden in 1993, that’s where the sexual misconduct allegations later came from. Reade claimed that Biden pinned her against a wall and “penetrated her with his fingers” when she came to deliver his gym bag.

Her story has been corroborated by her brother, but others who worked in Biden’s office at the time the assault took place have refuted her claims, noting that to their knowledge, Reade would not have been asked to deliver personal items to the senator nor would she have much personal interaction with the senator at all. Biden himself also released a statement fully refuting Reade’s allegations, maintaining that “this never happened”.

According to CNN, later, Tara Reade changed her name to Alexandra McCabe, claiming it was for her personal protection, and attended Antioch University in Seattle in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. She claims to have returned to teach as a visiting professor “on and off for five years”. However, there’s no evidence that anyone named Alexandra McCabe ever graduated from Antioch University or taught there, indicating that her story may be fabricated.

In 2004 Reade graduated from Seattle University’s School of Law in 2004. In recent years, Reade has become a columnist for Russia Today, a state-controlled media outlet of the Russian Federation geared towards foreign audiences.

Trails of deceit

Those who know Reade accuse her of being duplicitous. Politico published an exposé on Reade’s strained relationships in which a former landlord Harriet Wrye reports that Reade “was always on the ropes in some way” financially and that “she was manipulative”. Interviews with others reveal a pattern of artifice and exploitation. According to Kelly Klett, another former landlord, Reade could be described “by three words: manipulative, deceitful, user”.

Additionally, in regards to her initial 1993 complaint of sexual misconduct against then-Senator Biden, according to the New York Times, other Biden aides didn’t remember any such complaint. Vox, in a similar vein, wrote that it “did not publish anything about Reade in 2019” due to a lack of evidence supporting her allegations and the fact that “the story that both she and her corroborating witnesses are telling has changed dramatically,” casting doubt on truthfulness of her allegations.

Ties to Russia

While the origins of Reade’s ties to the Kremlin remain murky, a few things are clear. For starters, she linked with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s propaganda outlet “Foundation to Battle Injustice” to publish a vibrant account of her allegations against then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

She later wrote a now-deleted blog post on Medium in May 2020 entitled “Why a Liberal Democrat Supports Vladimir Putin”. Since then, she has published several opinion pieces for RT in addition to her many pro-Russian tweets. Russian diplomats even attempted to bring Reade with them to appear before the UN Security Council in 2022.

Perhaps the most intriguing Reade-Russia connection is her relationship with Maria Butina, a convicted Russian spy who spent 18 months in American prison for violating US espionage laws by infiltrating political organisations and passing intelligence back to the Kremlin, as was reported by CBS. Following her 2019 release from prison and subsequent deportation back to the Russian Federation, Butina has been serving as a deputy in Russia’s State Duma and is working to assist Reade as she seeks Russian citizenship.

Reade claims that she “has always loved Russia,” and that she “just really appreciate[s] Maria [Butina]” for being so helpful during such a challenging time in her life. Reade, it seems, has found a shoulder to cry on after falling out of favour with mainstream America in the wake of her ill-fated accusations against Biden in 2020.

Reade’s role in Russian state propaganda

In recent years, Reade has become increasingly embroiled in Russia’s disinformation efforts, linking arms with the state-controlled outlet Russia Today. The US Department of State published a report that names RT as one of the “critical elements in Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem” and argues that the outlet is used “to inject pro-Kremlin disinformation and propaganda into the information environment,” especially “when factual reporting…is not favourable.”

In a recent video interview with Maria Butina, Reade claims that she “has always loved the history and beautiful culture of Russia” and reveals that she has family ties to Russia. Reade also asserts that Joe Biden “was very biased against Russia” when she worked with him in the early 90s and that she “tried to lift her voice that if Joe Biden ever became president he would take [the United States] to war with Russia”.

Reade, a self-described whistleblower, asserts that she “never saw Russia as an enemy,” implying a generally-held view among Americans that Russia is an enemy nation. She speaks out about cancel culture in an op-ed piece, claiming that she has fallen victim to a “demonization campaign” and has “been called a traitor” for speaking positively about Russia. She criticises the American establishment by maintaining that “the American landscape has become quite rough for any whistleblower or anyone with a dissenting opinion from the elites”, avering that “it is imperative to continue to call out the hypocrisy of the American ruling class”.

In another opinion piece published by RT, Reade speaks out against sexist portrayals of Russian women in Western media. She alleges that many feel that sexist microaggressions are acceptable, “as long as the victims are Russians”. She brings forth the argument that Americans’ “biased perception” of Russia “is based on years of carefully crafted Western media propaganda aimed at vilifying Russians”.

What’s more, Reade has her own YouTube channel with 2,5k subscribers. In one video offering her version of the ongoing war in Ukraine, Reade says that “we [Americans] are being sleepwalked into, possibly, a world conflict and we’re not even being told the truth about basic atrocities that are happening in Ukraine right now”. It’s unclear exactly which atrocities she’s referring to, but in another video she claims that “the truth is that America is fighting a proxy war against Russia and using Ukraine as cannon fodder”.

In terms of propaganda, she posits that Americans “are being saturated with propaganda”. “There has been an attempt by the West to erase anything Russian,” Reade says. According to her, the West is actively using “mass hysteria around bigotry and xenophobia against Russia” and trying to erase history.