Juanita Broaddrick - just the facts

[EdwardBernays]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Autumn (a host of the Bernie Sanders group).

BEFORE ANYONE ALERTS ON THIS PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING:

I am NOT saying Bill Clinton raped Juanita Broaddrick. I am simply laying out all the facts and claims so that - in the coming weeks when her name is repeated over and over in the media - people will know as much as they can. I hope that people that have facts/claims that I have missed will add them in the comments; I will then add them to the OP.

So why I am posting this? Vox sums it up:

"So far, this issue has mostly been raised by conservative media[...]. But it's a substantive matter worthy of coverage from non-right-wing outlets as well. There really are multiple accusations of sexual assault against Bill Clinton, accusations that have too often been conflated with his much better-established and much less morally concerning history of adultery. Are the women making these accusations survivors who deserve to be believed, to borrow Hillary Clinton's language? Or, as she later insisted, have their accusations all been found to be baseless?"

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/6/10722580/bill-clinton-juanita-broaddrick
---

What we know

The public first became aware of Juanita Broderick through stories like this on Dateline:

Here's the transcript to the full Dateline interview/investigation:
http://shadowgov.com/Clinton/DNBCJuanitaTranscript.html

"The interview was conducted on January 20, 1999, before the Senate on February 12 ultimately acquitted Clinton on charges related to his affair with Monica Lewinsky. NBC delayed airing until February 24, and Broaddrick, frustrated, gave accounts to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Washington Post, and the New York Times in the meantime."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB919379691540145000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/janedoe022099.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/24/us/on-tortuous-route-sexual-assault-accusation-against-clinton-resurfaces.html?pagewanted=all

That SHOULD be enough to get people caught on the allegations, as they stood, in 1999. But of course this wasn't the first time the media heard this:

"The allegation was passed on to reporters for The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times in the waning days of the 1992 Presidential campaign. Regarding it as the kind of toxic waste traditionally dumped just before Election Day, both newspapers passed on the story -- that a nursing-home executive had been sexually assaulted in 1978 by Bill Clinton, then the Attorney General of Arkansas." - NYTimes

Here's the thing though:

"The rumor persisted in the shadowlands of the Internet, even after a sworn denial by Juanita Broaddrick, the woman involved. Mrs. Broaddrick reversed herself last spring, during questioning by investigators for the independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr. Last month, during the impeachment process, she decided to make the assault charges public in an interview with NBC News. Then she chafed because the interview was not broadcast.

...

The problems with Mrs. Broaddrick's accusation are obvious. There is no physical evidence to verify it. No one else was present during the alleged encounter in a Little Rock hotel room nearly 21 years ago. The hotel has since closed. And Mrs. Broaddrick denied the encounter in an affidavit in January 1998 in the Paula Jones case, in which she was known only as ''Jane Doe No. 5.'' Through all those years, she refused to come forward. When pressed by the Jones lawyers, she denied the allegation. And now, she has recanted that denial." - NYTimes

On the other hand:

'Several friends of Broaddrick's backed up the story. Norma Rogers, who was the director of nursing at Broaddrick's nursing home at the time, told reporters that she entered the hotel room shortly after the assault allegedly took place and "found Mrs. Broaddrick crying and in 'a state of shock.' Her upper lip was puffed out and blue, and appeared to have been hit." Kelsey elaborated to the New York Times, "She told me he forced himself on her, forced her to have intercourse.

In the Dateline show, Broaddrick's friends Louise Ma, Susan Lewis, and Jean Darden (Norma Rogers's sister) all told NBC News that Broaddrick told them Bill Clinton raped her at the time. David Broaddrick — with whom Broaddrick was having an affair at the time; they both eventually left their spouses to marry each other — also told NBC that Broaddrick's top lip was black after the alleged incident, and that she told him "that she had been raped by Bill Clinton." - Vox.

So who's telling the truth? Can we ever know? And how does this relate to Hillary?


Slate does a good job of laying out some of the he said/she said options:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/1999/03/is_juanita_broaddrick_telling_the_truth.html

For example:

"The Details

Broaddrick did not remember the date of the rape, though she did supply the name of the hotel (Camelot) and the reason she was visiting Little Rock (a nursing home seminar). She also says that Clinton pointed to a ramshackle prison outside the hotel room window before he raped her and said he planned to renovate it. NBC News found a date when a nursing home seminar was held in the Camelot Hotel and records show that Broaddrick attended. Newspaper reports suggest that Clinton was in the area and had no official commitments in the early morning, when the rape is supposed to have occurred. There was a prison outside the hotel window.

Clinton Is Innocent: It is hard to believe that a raped woman would forget the date. The fact that Clinton was in Little Rock is hardly remarkable.

Clinton is Guilty: The detail about wanting to spruce up the prison sounds "very, very much like our Bill" (Kelly)."

And

"Clinton's Response

Clinton has given only a short denial through his private attorney and refuses to comment further.

Clinton Is Innocent: Clinton is not being sued or prosecuted right now--though there's a tiny possibility he could be--so he's wise to avoid public statements that might be used against him. It's also possible that he had a consensual affair with Broaddrick, and he doesn't want to admit this because of his concern for wife and child.

Clinton is Guilty: An innocent man would not allow his name to be smeared in this way."

There's also this, which seems to make her story less believable - potentially:

"In his memoir The Clinton Wars, White House aide Sidney Blumenthal notes that when Paula Jones's lawyers first approached Broaddrick, she refused to cooperate, and upon being subpoenaed signed an affidavit saying, "I do not have any information to offer regarding a nonconsensual or unwelcome sexual advance by Mr. Clinton." Only after that did she file another affidavit insisting the assault did occur, at which point, Blumenthal argues, she "had no standing as a reliable witness." That's one interpretation. But it often takes a while for rape accusers to come forward, so Broaddrick's initial unwillingness to relay the allegation is hardly airtight proof she's lying.

Blumenthal also noted that Norma Rogers and Jean Darden had reasons to want to damage Clinton's reputation, because in 1980 he had commuted the death sentence of their father's killer. "

However:

"But NBC News interviewed Louise Ma and Susan Lewis on camera as well, who didn't have that particular family grudge against Clinton, and to my knowledge there’s no evidence they had some other unspecified grudge. That doesn't mean their claims are necessarily accurate, but it's not the case that the only statements corroborating Broaddrick's story came from people with established grudges against the Clintons." - Vox

Broaddrick has also claimed that she was thanked by Bill AND Hillary for her silence, initially:

"About six months after her initial interviews in 1999, Broaddrick told the Drudge Report that mere weeks after the alleged assault, Hillary Clinton had tried to thank her for her silence on the matter at a political rally:

&quot Hillary) came directly to me as soon as she hit the door. I had been there only a few minutes, I only wanted to make an appearance and leave. She caught me and took my hand and said 'I am so happy to meet you. I want you to know that we appreciate everything you do for Bill.' I started to turn away and she held onto my hand and reiterated her phrase -- looking less friendly and repeated her statement — 'Everything you do for Bill'. I said nothing. She wasn't letting me get away until she made her point. She talked low, the smile faded on the second thank you. I just released her hand from mine and left the gathering." - Vox

"In 1984, she claims she got a letter from Clinton after her nursing home was recognized as one of the top facilities in the state, with a handwritten note saying, "I admire you very much." She interpreted that as a thank you for her silence. Then in 1991, she says she saw Clinton outside a meeting on nursing home standards in Little Rock, and that he said he wanted to apologize to her and asked what he could do to make things right. She recalls saying, "Nothing," and walking away."

And of course David Brock finds a way to make it all more awful:

"Some Clinton allies have implied that Clinton may have had consensual sex with Broaddrick but that she alleged rape because she didn't want her then-boyfriend David Broaddrick to know she was cheating on him (and on her husband). In his book Blinded by the Right, David Brock hypothesizes, "Dave Broaddrick had suspected Juanita of having consensual sex with Clinton and that Juanita came up with the rape claim later to get herself out of trouble with her boyfriend." In his book Uncovering Clinton, Michael Isikoff — who helped break the Monica Lewinsky story as a reporter at Newsweek — writes, "Privately, Clinton's lawyers have conceded that Clinton may have had consensual sex with Broaddrick but insist that he would have never forced himself upon an unwilling participant."" - Vox

That's the cheating not raping defence, so to speak.

Finally, it's important to note that times HAVE changed... the media and the population has a much better understanding of how victims can behave, and don't necessarily think that Broaddrick's behaviour is odd for a victim:

"…We will probably never know the truth of what happened between Broaddrick and Clinton. But today, few feminists would find her shifting story disqualifying. Consider, also, another piece of evidence that was marshaled against Broaddrick in the 1990s: Three weeks after the alleged assault, she attended a fundraiser for Clinton. Speaking to Klein, she says she was traumatized and blamed herself for what happened. "I felt responsible. I don’t know if you know the mentality of women and men at that time. But me letting him come to my room? I accepted full blame." In any other context, most feminists today would find this credible. After all, many were outraged when rape skeptics tried to discredit Columbia student Emma Sulkowicz because she’d sent friendly Facebook messages to her alleged rapist after the alleged rape."

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/12/bill_clinton_s_sexual_past_can_still_hurt_hillary.html

It's also worth revisiting the behaviour of some of the Cosby victims, who almost everyone here believes:

"Kristina Ruehli accused Cosby of drugging and assaulting her in his Beverly Hills home on that date in theb1960s. At that time, Ruehli told her boyfriend about the incident, and in the 1980s also told her daughter. However, she did not speak further about it until 2005, when she came forward in the Andrea Constand case as Jane Doe #12." - Wiki via CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2014/11/24/newday-cosby-accuser-kristina-ruehli.cnn/video/playlists/new-day-top-clips/

"After learning that charges were not pursued in the case, California lawyer Tamara Lucier Green, the only publicly named woman in the prior case, came forward with allegations in February 2005 that Cosby had drugged and assaulted her in the 1970s.[20][21][22] Cosby's lawyer said that Cosby did not know her and the events did not happen." - Wiki via the Today Show

http://www.today.com/id/6945190/ns/today/t/second-cosby-accuser-why-she-came-forward/

But on the other hand, there's all of this:

"Though Broaddrick was very resistant to talking to the media, rumors about her story began circulating no later than Clinton’s presidential bid in 1992.[4] Broaddrick had confided in Phillip Yoakum, whom she knew from business circles and at the time considered a friend. When Clinton won the Democratic nomination, Yoakum, widely considered to have a Republican agenda,[4] contacted Sheffield Nelson, Clinton’s opponent in the 1990 gubernatorial race. Yoakum arranged a meeting between Nelson and Broaddrick, who resisted Yoakum's and Nelson’s push that she go public.[10] Yoakum secretly taped the conversation and wrote a letter summarizing the allegations, which began to circulate within Republican circles. The story reached the New York Times and the LA Times in October 1992, but the papers dropped the story after Broaddrick refused to talk to reporters and Yoakum refused to release the recording.[4]

In the fall of 1997, Paula Jones’s private investigators tried to talk to Broaddrick at her home, also secretly taping the conversation.[9] Broaddrick refused to discuss the incident, saying “it was just a horrible horrible thing,” and that she “wouldn’t relive it for anything.”[11] The investigators told her she would likely be subpoenaed if she would not talk to them. Broaddrick said she would deny everything, saying “you can’t get to him, and I’m not going to ruin my good name to do it… there’s just absolutely no way anyone can get to him, he’s just too vicious.”[11] Broaddrick was subpoenaed in the Jones suit soon after and submitted an affidavit denying that Clinton had made “any sexual advances”.[1][2] The recording of Broaddrick’s conversation with the investigators was leaked to the press, but Broaddrick continued to refuse to speak to reporters.[9]

Despite Broaddrick’s denial in her affidavit, Jones’ lawyers included Yoakum’s letter and Broaddrick's name in a 1998 filing.[9] The letter suggested that the Clintons had bought Broaddrick’s silence, describing a phone call where Broaddrick’s husband asked Yoakum to say the incident never happened and said that he intended to ask Clinton “for a couple of big favors.”[12] This, along with the discrepancy between the letter and Broaddrick’s affidavit, attracted the attention of independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who was investigating Clinton for obstruction of justice. After being approached by the FBI, Broaddrick consulted her son, a lawyer, who told her she could not lie to federal investigators.[4] After they promised her she would not be prosecuted for perjury regarding her affidavit in the Jones case, Broaddrick recanted the affidavit. However, she insisted that Clinton had not pressured or bribed her in any way, and so Starr concluded that the story was not relevant to his investigation and his report only mentioned the recanting in a footnote.[10]

Rumors continued to circulate in tabloids and on talk radio, now with Broaddrick's name attached.[9] Broaddrick was upset by a tabloid report that she had been paid to keep quiet, and decided to agree to an interview with NBC's Lisa Myers. Myers interviewed her on January 20, 1999, the day after Clinton was impeached. The interview only aired on February 24, 1999, 35 days later and after Clinton had been acquitted. NBC was accused of intentionally sitting on the story and invoking unusually demanding standards of corroboration until the impeachment process ended.[9] Broaddrick and another source said NBC gathered the key corroborating evidence within 10 days of the interview, NBC assistant producer Chris Giglio said it may have taken him 14 days—in either case, while the impeachment process was ongoing.[9] Though the story was unaired, at least one Republican senator reportedly invoked it to convince undecided Republicans to vote for impeachment.[4]

While NBC waited to air the interview, Broaddrick was approached by Dorothy Rabinowitz, who wrote for the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Upset with NBC's delay, Broaddrick agreed to speak with Rabinowitz, and the story debuted on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page on February 19.[13] NBC aired Myers' interview soon after."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juanita_Broaddrick

So... what's the truth? No one knows. Well... two people know, but we probably never will. Should she be dismissed out of hand? No. Should she believed without reservation? Absolutely not.

And because of that, it seems impossible to really place much value in this...

I'll let Vox sum up how this affects 2016:

"As Goldberg notes, some of the conservatives resurfacing the Broaddrick case are clearly doing so in bad faith to attack the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, who certainly did not personally assault Broaddrick (Broaddrick's allegations of intimidation aside). But the Clinton critics have a point. There is a crucial tension between "believe survivors" and the "Juanita Broaddrick is lying" position of some Clinton defenders, lacking further information.

One answer might be giving up the former position. Many, including Harvard Law's Jeannie Suk, have argued that defaulting to believing every accusation of rape "harms the overall credibility of sexual assault claims," given that false claims do happen, albeit quite rarely. But whatever the merits of that view, adopting it would be a big pivot for Hillary Clinton, given that just a couple of months ago she was tweeting, "Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported." There's no easy way to reconcile that view with her allies' dismissal of Broaddrick's allegations."

[EdwardBernays]

1. kick

for the lunch crowd

[Hell Hath No Fury]

2. I was a Clinton True Believer back in the day --

and pretty much (conveniently) ignored the various reports on these matters as RW smears. I need to take a fresh look at the allegations.

[EdwardBernays]

3. I think

It's worth trying to look at this stuff with open eyes I think... We may never known all the truth about the various allegations etc, but... Better to not let partisanship stop you from knowing the truth.

[thucythucy]

4. Thank you for this.

I imagine the Trump people will raise this again, and it's best we have as complete an accounting as possible.