Former US Senate staffer and RT contributor Tara Reade applied for asylum in the country two years ago
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree granting citizenship to RT contributor and former US Senate aide Tara Reade. The political commentator has been living in the country for the last two years.
Reade worked as a Senate aide for Joe Biden in the early 1990s before accusing him in 2020 of sexually assaulting her in a Capitol office building in 1993. Biden has denied the allegations. Reade moved to Moscow in 2023, citing safety concerns that she said increased after she repeated her accusations during Biden’s re-election campaign.
In a statement following the granting of her citizenship, Reade expressed her gratitude to “many heroes along the way with my story,” and personally to RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan.
“I teared up, I was so joyful, and I immediately talked to some of the people at RT,” she told the news channel, commenting on the announcement of her citizenship.
Reade recounted how her “family was under threat by the US government, by the Biden regime” when Representative Matt Gaetz told her that it would be safer to stay in Russia and to apply for asylum in the country.
Reade is not the first foreign public figure to be granted Russian citizenship by presidential decree. Among the most high-profile is NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who in 2013 revealed illegal mass US surveillance of American citizens. After his passport was cancelled by the US State Department under President Barack Obama, Snowden sought and was granted asylum in Russia, and later Russian citizenship.
Others include American actor Steven Seagal, who received citizenship in 2016 and has since been active in Russian cultural diplomacy, French actor Gerard Depardieu, and mixed martial artist Jeff Monson.
