“I was 35 when Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73. It never goes away.”
This was the tweet of Juanita Broaddrick in response to Chelsea Clinton’s comments to Cosmopolitan magazine, in which she said, “I don’t remember a time in my life when my parents and my family weren’t being attacked.”
Broaddrick told Chelsea, “Your father was, and probably is, a sexual predator. Your mother has always lied and covered up for him.”,
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had threatened to invite Gennifer Flowers, one of Bill Clinton’s many mistresses, to Monday night’s debate. He suggested that he finally chose against it to keep from hurting Chelsea’s feelings.
Late last year, at a public event, Hillary Clinton was asked about the allegations against her husband, such as those made by Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Broaddrick. She responded that all accusers should be taken at their word “until they are disbelieved based on evidence.”
So what is the evidence in the Broaddrick case? Should she be “disbelieved?”
According to Broaddrick, she was raped by Bill Clinton when he was the attorney general of Arkansas, on April 25, 1978. At the time of the alleged rape, she was a county coordinator for Clinton’s first run for governor, and was in Little Rock for a nursing conference at the Camelot Hotel. Clinton was also campaigning at the conference, and asked to meet with her in the downstairs coffee shop of the hotel.
Later, Clinton called and asked if he could meet with her in her hotel room instead.
Broaddrick later said she was “a little bit uneasy,” but didn’t feel any danger in him coming to her room. But she alleges that Clinton almost immediately sexually assaulted her, violently biting her upper lip, and throwing her on the bed. She said she asked him to stop and that she did not want “this to happen.” When she began yelling he bit down on her lip. Broaddrick claims that he bit her lip so hard that he almost severed it.
After Clinton allegedly raped her twice, Broaddrick said that he casually slipped on his sunglasses and told her, “You better get some ice on that,” in an obvious reference to her bitten lip.
But is there any corroboration for Broaddrick’s story?
Broaddrick friend Norma Rogers-Kelsay came to her hotel room a few minutes later and found Juanita badly shaken. Rogers-Kelsey said Broaddrick was in a “state of shock, her lip swollen, mouth bruised, and her pantyhose torn at the crotch.”
According to Rogers-Kelsey, Broaddrick told her that Clinton had forced her to have “intercourse against her will.” Rogers-Kelsey said that Broaddrick’s “lips were swollen, at least double in size.” Rogers-Kelsey then drove Broaddrick home, stopping several times to put ice on her mouth. Another witness who saw Broaddrick shortly after the alleged episode, Phillip Yoakum, said the lip was “damaged to the point of nearly being torn into two pieces.”
Years later, Broaddrick explained to Lisa Myers of NBC’s Dateline that she thought no one would believe her story, and she felt embarrassed that she had agreed to meet Clinton alone in her hotel room. The interview was taped before the vote in the Senate on whether to convict Clinton of an impeachment charge, but NBC neglected to air the program until two weeks after the Senate vote, which ended in a 50-50 tie. (It takes a two-third vote of the Senate, after impeachment by the House, to remove a president from office).
In October of 2000, Broaddrick wrote an open letter to Hillary Clinton, published online, with the opening words, “Do you remember me?” It continued,
I have no doubt that you are the same conniving, self-serving person you were twenty-two years ago when I had the misfortune to meet you. When I see you on television, campaigning for the New York senate race, I can see the same hypocrisy in your face that you displayed to me one evening in 1978. You have not changed.
I remember it as though it was yesterday. I only wish that it were yesterday and maybe there would still be time to do something about what your husband, Bill Clinton, did to me. There was a political rally for Mr. Clinton’s bid for governor of Arkansas. I had obligated myself to be at this rally prior to my being assaulted by your husband in April, 1978. I had made up my mind to make an appearance and then leave as soon as the two of you arrived. This was a big mistake, but I was still in a state of shock and denial. You had questioned the gentleman who drove you and Mr. Clinton from the airport. You asked him about me and if I would be at the gathering. Do you remember? You told the driver, “Bill has talked so much about Juanita,” and that you were so anxious to meet me. Well, you wasted no time. As soon as you entered the room, you came directly to me and grabbed my hand. Do you remember how you thanked me, saying “we want to thank you for everything you do for Bill.” At that point, I was badly shaken and started to walk off. Remember how you kept a tight grip on my hand and drew closer to me? You repeated your statement, but this time with a coldness and look that I have seen many times on television in the last eight years. You said, “Everything you do for Bill.”
Broaddrick then asked, “What did you mean, Hillary? Were you referring to my keeping quiet about the assault that I had suffered at the hands of your husband only two weeks before? Were you warning me to continue to keep quiet?”
Soon after this open letter was published, Broaddrick’s nursing home was audited, for the first time, by the IRS.
Perhaps this is why she tweeted to Chelsea Clinton, “Your parents are not good people.”
Meanwhile the media has expressed interest in what Hillary Clinton alleges Trump is supposed to have said about Alicia Machado, a Miss Universe back in 1996 — an allegation that Trump denied. The former beauty queen claims Trump called her “Miss Piggy,” in an unkind reference to her weight gain. Now a U.S. citizen, Machado is an active supporter of Hillary Clinton for president.
When asked by Megyn Kelly of Fox News whether anyone else had heard Trump say that about her, Machado was evasive. Trump challenged Clinton during the debate over where she heard that he had used the words.
Somehow, it seems the media would be at least as interested in a rape allegation against Hillary Clinton’s husband, which Juanita Broaddrick claims Hillary helped cover up in 1978. But at least Bill Clinton did not tell Broaddrick she was overweight.
Photo of Bill and Hillary Clinton: AP Images
