A brutal-to-read follow up to my Monday post regarding newly-released audio of Hillary Clinton reflecting on a 1975 criminal case in which she represented an accused child rapist whom she believed to be guilty. On the tape, Mrs. Clinton recalls a catastrophic error made by the police, who lost DNA evidence implicating her client -- a man she'd taken on as a client as a favor to a local prosecutor. Court documents reveal that Clinton took steps to challenge the victim's credibility and emotional stability by requesting a psychological evaluation.* To that end, she cited unsourced representations that the then 12-year-old girl had a history of making baseless allegations of assault (representations that the victim vehemently denies to this day). Clinton also quoted the opinion of an expert who argued that adolescent girls from broken homes are prone to "exaggerate" and "romanticize" sexual behavior." In doing so, Hillary appeared to be maneuvering to tee up an attack-the-victim legal strategy, while potentially calling into question the veracity of an entire class of victims of sexual assault. Critics may wonder how these actions coincide with or impact Clinton's carefully-cultivated image as a champion of women and girls. The audio recordings also capture Hillary chuckling about her efforts to exploit the local authorities' mistake, which ultimately allowed the her client to get off with an extremely reduced sentence on lesser charges. Her laughter over decidedly unfunny developments is strange and off-putting. A legal expert quoted by the Washington Free Beacon, which published the original story, also questioned the ethics of Clinton revealing the results of her client's polygraph test. She told a reporter that the accused man passed the test, which "forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs," a clear indication of Hillary's opinion of her client's guilt. The Free Beacon piece did not quote the victim extensively, saying that the woman (now 52 years old) declined an interview. She did, however, express a "deep and abiding hostility" toward Mrs. Clinton. In the wake of the audio's release, the Daily Beast managed to land an interview with the victim, who comes across as a troubled woman who remains furious with Hillary:
In a long, emotional interview with The Daily Beast, she accused Clinton of intentionally lying about her in court documents, going to extraordinary lengths to discredit evidence of the rape, and later callously acknowledging and laughing about her attackers’ guilt on the recordings. “Hillary Clinton took me through Hell,” the victim said. The Daily Beast agreed to withhold her name out of concern for her privacy as a victim of sexual assault. The victim said if she saw Clinton today, she would call her out for what she sees as the hypocrisy of Clinton’s current campaign to fight for women’s rights compared to her actions regarding this rape case so long ago. “I would say [to Clinton], ‘You took a case of mine in ‘75, you lied on me… I realize the truth now, the heart of what you’ve done to me. And you are supposed to be for women? You call that [being] for women, what you done to me? And I hear you on tape laughing.”
The victim, who remains anonymous, says Hillary's claims about her supposed history of unfounded accusations were flat-out lies:
The victim vigorously denied Clinton’s accusations and said there has never been any explanation of what Clinton was referring to in that affidavit. She claims she never accused anyone of attacking her before her rape. “I’ve never said that about anyone. I don’t know why she said that. I have never made false allegations. I know she was lying,” she said. “I definitely didn’t see older men. I don’t know why Hillary put that in there and it makes me plumb mad.”
She also says that listening to the clip of Hillary discussing her case reduced her to tears and compelled her to speak out at greater length:
For the victim, the tapes prove that while Clinton was arguing in the affidavit that the victim could have some culpability in her own attack, she actually believed that her client was guilty. Taylor’s light sentence was a miscarriage of justice, the victim said. “It’s proven fact, with all the tapes [now revealed], she lied like a dog on me. I think she was trying to do whatever she could do to make herself look good at the time…. She wanted it to look good, she didn’t care if those guys did it or not,” she said. “Them two guys should have got a lot longer time. I do not think justice was served at all.” “When I heard that tape I was pretty upset, I went back to the room and was talking to my two cousins and I cried a little bit. I ain’t gonna lie, some of this has got me pretty down,” she said. “But I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to stand up to her. I’m going to stand up for what I’ve got to stand up for, you know?”
Based on her experience, the woman does not believe Hillary Clinton would make for an honest president:
“I think she wants to be a role model being who she is, to look good, but I don’t think she’s a role model at all… If she had have been, she would have helped me at the time, being a 12-year-old girl who was raped by two guys,” she said. “She did that to look good and she told lies on that. How many other lies has she told to get where she’s at today? If she becomes president, is she gonna be telling the world the truth? No. She’s going to be telling lies out there, what the world wants to hear.” The victim is concerned that speaking out will make her a target for attacks but she no longer feels she is able to stay silent. “I’m a little scared of her… When this all comes about, I’m a little worried she might try to hurt me, I hope not,” she said. “They can lie all they want, say all they want, I know what’s true.”
This woman may sound like she has an axe to grind. Hell yes, she does. She was raped at a very young age, and Hillary Clinton called her a liar at the time, then laughed about how her guilty client eluded justice years later. According to the Daily Beast report, the victim was a virgin at the time of her attack, and has struggled with addiction and depression throughout her adult life. We'll see if the Clintons unleash their patented "nuts and sluts" attack machine against this victim of child rape. As I mentioned in my previous post, one news report dredged up this story in 2008 -- and its author alleges that it was "buried" at the time by his editor. The story said the victim did not hold any residual resentment against Mrs. Clinton (which she now hotly disputes), and it quoted a spokesman for Hillary dismissing the decades-old episode. Among other things, the spokesman claimed that Hillary was "appointed [to the case] by the Circuit Court of Washington County." Clinton's own account from the recorded interview, however, indicates that she chose to accept this particular client as a favor. Meanwhile, the Washington Free Beacon has been banned from the University of Arkansas' public library, where reporter Alana Goodman uncovered the Hillary audio. The wagons-circling, punitive decision was detailed in a letter from the dean of the libraries, who happens to be a Hillary Clinton donor. The WFB's attorney fired off an irate and incredulous reply (italics original, other emphasis mine):
Your claim that the Free Beacon violated “the University’sintellectual property rights” is equally perplexing. You have notdemonstrated or even asserted that the University owns the copyright inthese recordings. And even if the University did own the copyright, the Free Beacon’s use of the materials undoubtedly would constitute fair use. As you know, the newsworthiness of information greatly increases the likelihoodthat its republication constitutes fair use. It is hard to conceive ofinformation that is more newsworthy than details about the career one of thenation’s most prominent political figures. Additionally, when determining whether a publication constitutes fair use, courts heavily weigh the effect ofthe use on the market for the copyrighted work. To our knowledge, there is no “market” for this material, as university libraries do not typically sellaccess to their collections. Any reference to a claim based on your“intellectual property” is patently frivolous. Your demand that the Free Beacon “[i]mmediately remove the audio recordings” from its website is entirely unprecedented and particularly troubling. Post-publication restraints on the press are among the most pernicious intrusions on free speech. In addition to lacking absolutely anylegal basis, your demand flies in the face of the values that we expect from our libraries...Your purported suspension of my client’s journalists from your public library for the sole reason that they published audio recordings is similarly invalid and highly inappropriate. You cite absolutely no policy that gives you the unilateral authority to exclude journalists from a public library based on the content of the material that they publish. In addition to clearly violating the First Amendment, this suspension is contrary to Arkansas state law.
The library's disturbing and heavy-handed response has even earned the scorn of some left-leaning media figures:
Me too. RT @samsteinhp: I'm on Team Free Beacon http://t.co/poFvtAYQ5K
— michaelscherer (@michaelscherer) June 20, 2014
What else might the Clintons and their acolytes prefer to stay buried?
*This post has been updated to more precisely reflect the nature of Hillary Rodham's court filing.
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