Then and now: How evidence in Kavanaugh case compares with Biden accusation

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In the weeks after Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party in high school, she was unable to produce any corroborating, contemporaneous witnesses to demonstrate that she had mentioned the alleged assault to anyone -- or even that she had ever met Kavanaugh.

In fact, Ford's friend Leland Keyser would expressly contradict Ford's narrative, saying it "just didn't make any sense." Although Ford claimed Keyser had attended the 1982 party during which the alleged assault occurred, Keyser had no recollection of the event or anything like it, and asserted that it was implausible that Ford couldn't recall how she had gotten home or where exactly the party had occurred. Kavanaugh forcefully denied the accusation.

Nevertheless, Ford's accusation immediately reverberated throughout the nation's political landscape and dominated the coverage of every major media organization. Virtually all Democratic senators called for a serious inquiry, if not Kavanaugh's withdrawal from consideration for the Supreme Court. Later, accusations by Deborah Ramirez and Michael Avenatti client Julie Swetnick, although also uncorroborated, only added fuel to those calls.

Now, more than a month after Tara Reade alleged that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her when she worked for him as a staffer, those same Democrats and media outlets are mostly silent. Reade, however, has presented substantially more corroborating evidence than Ford did when she leveled her claims in 2018.

Biden himself hasn't addressed the allegation against him, and no one in the media has asked him about it during interviews. Representatives for Biden's campaign have denied the allegations. Biden has previously been caught on camera touching women and seemingly making them uncomfortable, and has said he would change that conduct going forward.

A review of the evidence follows.

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