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Tara Reade during an interview with The Associated Press in Nevada City, California, on April 4, 2019. Photo: Donald Thompson / AP / Scanpix / LETA
Alexandra Tara McCabe, better known as Tara Reade, came to prominence in 2020 when she accused her former boss, presidential canditate Joe Biden, of sexual assault. Reade worked in Biden’s Senate office in the 1990s and later changed her name to McCabe following a divorce. Now, she has been granted Russian citizenship, the Russian business media outlet RBC reports.
Vladimir Putin signed the decree naturalizing her as a citizen. It read:
“Grant citizenship of the Russian Federation to McCabe Alexandra Tara, born Feb. 26, 1964, in the United States of America.”
The new Russian citizen’s 2020 claims against Biden were highly controversial. At a moment when her former boss was wrapping up the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Reade filed a police report alleging sexual assault, but she did not name a perpetrator. Later, she told journalists that Biden had assaulted her in the hallway of a U.S. Senate office building in 1993. Biden denied the allegation.
The Washington Post investigated, interviewing around 20 former Biden staffers from the 1990s, and reported finding no corroboration. The newspaper also highlighted inconsistencies in Reade’s background — including her claim of a university degree she had not completed. In addition, her ex-husband disputed some of her accusations during divorce proceedings.
In 2023, Reade repeated her allegations on Twitter and said she was willing to testify under oath before Congress. She said that after that she began receiving death threats, which prompted her to leave the United States and move to Russia.
In May 2023, Reade arrived in Moscow and held a lengthy press conference at the state-owned Rossiya Segodnya media group, where she was joined by State Duma MP Maria Butina. At the time, Reade announced her intention to apply for Russian citizenship.
During the joint appearance, Reade referred to Butina as “my friend” and used “Masha,” a familiar Russian diminutive of Maria. Butina said the two had known each other “for quite some time,” and that she appealed directly to Putin to fast-track Reade’s citizenship request.
“When I stepped off the plane in Moscow, for the first time in a very long time I felt safe, I felt heard and I felt respected,” Reade said.
Since moving to Russia, Reade has appeared at numerous state media events, giving an interview to Tucker Carlson during his visit to Moscow in February 2024. She has also worked with the Kremlin-controlled propaganda outlet RT. As noted by Meduza, while Russian citizenship usually requires five years of residency, Putin has granted exceptions in high-profile cases.
In 2018, U.S. prosecutors charged Butina with conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent. She admitted to working under the direction of a Russian government official (Alexander Torshin, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank and one of the leaders of the Taganskaya organized crime group) to build ties with American political groups, including the National Rifle Association (NRA).
She was not convicted of espionage, instead pleading guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent under U.S. law.
Butina was sentenced to 18 months in a U.S. prison before being deported to Russia in October 2019 after having served more than 15 months behind bars. She has since become a public figure and politician.