Joe’s request for a review of the Senate records was never going to happen. And chances are good Team Biden knew that going in.
On the day of his disastrous interview with Mika Brzezinsky, Joe Biden’s Team tweeted out a copy of the letter to the Secretary of the Senate — purportedly written by their guy – requesting a search of Senate records for any complaint filed by Tara Reade.
Well, today, the Secretary of the Senate responded saying the office has “no discretion to disclose any such information.” Laws passed by Congress prohibit any public dissemination of Senate records.
“Based on the law’s strict confidentiality requirements (Section 313) and the Senate’s own direction that disclosure of Senate Records is not authorized if prohibited by law [snip] Senate Legal Counsel advises that the Secretary has no discretion to disclose any such information as requested in Vice President Biden’s letter of May 1.”
What a shock.
Joe goes to the one place that, by law, can’t comply with his request.
I can’t be the only one thinking this was intentional.
You don’t think Team Biden knew that requesting Senate records was a legal non-starter? I’m thinking they knew going in that this was going to be the Secretary of the Senate’s response.
It’s easy for Joe Biden to claim that Tara Reade has a right to have her accusation investigated when he (or more likely his Team) knew there was no way to actually investigate her claim.
But they played along with the charade in order to A) feign transparency and B) try (once again) to put the story behind them.
Now Dirty Digit Joe can say, “Drat my luck that those Senate records are off limits. But at least I tried.”
The news media can now say “Biden has been transparent. He requested the Senate records be searched. There’s nothing more he can do. It’s time to move on.”
Democrats can echo this claim and praise Biden for his transparency which will naturally reaffirm for them their belief in Biden’s denial.
Meanwhile, none of them will press Biden any further on his archives housed at the University of Delaware. Records he could, if he chose, make available for review. No law is barring that. Which is probably why he isn’t offering those archives up to show how transparent he is.
This Senate records dog and pony show was about obfuscation, not transparency.
Lucky for Biden, the Democrats and the news media are more than happy to play along.