“Speaking as someone who’s actually been diagnosed with PTSD from sexual assault…”

I have also experienced this. And this is a horrible thing to watch another woman be found not credible. It’s even triggering.

Nonetheless, Reade is not a credible witness. She lied to Vox about her support of Russia going right up to the month of her allegation, and she deleted her articles supporting Russia.

The fact that she even asked about registering as a Russian agent — and was writing Pro Putin articles in Russian and deleting them right before she came out with this allegation does not make her story credible. She has worked as a victim’s advocate, so she should have known that lying about things like this would hurt her credibility. It’s not credible that she was only writing pro Putin articles because she was working on a novel. That’s not the way they were presented. I read the articles she wrote praising Putin in their entirety.

Someone presenting information 27 years later and also asking about registering as a Russia agent does not add up to a credible witness.

I’m not saying this as someone who hoped Biden would be our nominee. I preferred Warren, then Bernie. Lastly Biden. But just because I have experienced PTSD doesn’t mean I must find Tara Reade credible. If Kavanaugh’s accuser had lied like this and asked about registering as a Russian agent, she would never have been brought before Congress to testify.

And the difficult part about debunking a false story is that just by addressing it at all, it spreads the story further.