Tara Reade, a former U.S. Senate aide to Joe Biden who has accused the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee of sexual assault, has hired high-powered Manhattan attorney Douglas Wigdor, as she prepares to share her story in a nationally televised interview.

Wigdor said in a statement Thursday afternoon that his firm believes that "every survivor of sexual assault has the right to competent legal counsel, and we will represent Ms. Reade zealously, just as we would any other victim of sexual violence."

The announcement came after journalist Megyn Kelly said on Twitter that she will be sitting down with Reade for an on-camera interview discussing allegations that Biden had digitally penetrated her while she was working in his Senate office in 1993.

The former vice president has forcefully denied Reade's claims of sexual assault, saying in a May 1 interview on MSNBC that "it never happened."

Wigdor on Thursday stood by his client's account, which he noted had been confirmed by numerous people she had told at the time. Reade's interview, he said, would "describe to the American public what happened to her."

"We will help Ms. Reade be heard," he said.

Wigdor, who currently represents victims of convicted rapist and former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, said that Reade's allegations would make "our firm and Mr. Wigdor specifically" the target of partisan attacks, but denied that his representation was motivated by politics.

"We have decided to take this matter on because every survivor has the right to competent counsel, and that is exactly what we will provide," he said.

In his statement Wigdor stressed that he was a "vocal advocate of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and her counsel during the nomination" process of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and that he has supported numerous Democrats for political office in New York.

"There are many other examples that we could list, but we wanted to be crystal clear," Wigdor said. "Our representation of Ms. Reade has absolutely nothing to do with politics."

There was no indication in the statement that Reade was preparing to take legal action in the case.

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