Tara Reade, a former staff member of the U.S. Senate who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault during the 2020 election campaign and subsequently moved to Russia, received Russian citizenship on Monday.

A decree signed by President Vladimir Putin identified “McCabe Alexandra Tara, born February 26, 1964,” as a newly minted Russian national. Reports from U.S. media have indicated that Reade adopted the name Alexandra McCabe in 1998 after a domestic violence incident involving her former husband.

“I was overwhelmed with joy and even shed some tears,” Reade told RT, the broadcaster funded by the Kremlin, where she is currently employed.

Reade first appealed to Putin for a Russian passport during a state-held press conference in May 2023, when she revealed that a Republican congressman warned her about potential dangers. She has stated that she experienced threats in the U.S. and was labeled a “Russian agent” after publicly sharing her accusations.

Despite these reported threats, Reade returned to the United States last year.

She alleged that Biden sexually assaulted her in August 1993, when she was 29 and employed in his Senate office. Biden has denied the allegation, and no documentation has been found regarding the complaint that Reade claimed she filed at that time.

In a post on X early Tuesday, Reade expressed her gratitude to Putin “for ensuring my safety when I sought asylum,” recognizing RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, and Maria Butina, a Russian politician who was once imprisoned in the U.S. for being an unregistered foreign agent, for assisting her in “rebuilding my life” in Russia.