Putin Grants Russian Citizenship to Woman Who Accused Joe Biden of Sexual Assault

Tara Reade, a former U.S. Senate staffer who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault during the 2020 election campaign and later defected to Russia, was granted Russian citizenship on Monday.

A decree signed by President Vladimir Putin listed “McCabe Alexandra Tara, born Feb. 26, 1964,” as a newly naturalized Russian citizen. U.S. media have reported that Reade changed her name to Alexandra McCabe in 1998 following a domestic violence case involving her ex-husband.

“I teared up, I was so joyful,” Reade told the Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT, where she now works.

Reade first asked Putin for a Russian passport at a state-run press conference in May 2023, saying a Republican congressman had warned her she was in danger. She has since said she faced threats in the U.S. and was branded a “Russian agent” after going public with her allegations.

Despite those alleged threats, Reade visited the United States last year.

Reade accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in August 1993, when she was 29 and working in his Senate office. Biden denied the claim, and no record has been found of the complaint Reade said she filed at the time.

In a post on X early Tuesday, Reade thanked Putin “for keeping me safe when I applied for asylum,” and credited RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, as well as Maria Butina, a Russian lawmaker once imprisoned in the U.S. for acting as an unregistered foreign agent, for helping her “rebuild my life” in Russia.