Elections

Bill Clinton rape accuser: Hillary ‘needs to be held accountable’

By Anita Kumar

akumar@mcclatchydc.com

October 04, 2016 11:23 AM

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gives a thumbs up to members of the media as she boards her campaign plane in White Plains, N.Y., Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2016, to travel to Philadelphia International Airport. Clinton is attending rallies in Haverford, Pa. and Harrisburg, Pa. Andrew Harnik AP
WASHINGTON

Juanita Broaddrick, who accused former President Bill Clinton of assaulting her nearly four decades ago, said this week that Hillary Clinton needed to be held accountable for the comments she’d made about the women who had accused her husband of sexual misconduct.

“It’s degradable . . . she needs to be held accountable for all of the things she did to us,” Broaddrick told AM560 “The Answer” hosts Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson for Upstream Ideas.

Broaddrick, a former Arkansas nursing home administrator who worked on Bill Clinton’s gubernatorial campaign and supports Donald Trump this year, said she’d decided to speak out about Hillary Clinton after the candidate tweeted last year that sexual abuse victims had a right to be believed.

November 23, 2015
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“I did not set out to do this. I did not start out supporting Donald Trump,” Broaddrick said in the interview. “I was only responding to a tweet Hillary Clinton sent out about all victims of sexual abuse should come forward and be believed. . . . Shame on her. Her of all people should not make that comment.”

In January, Broaddrick tweeted: “I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73. . . . it never goes away.”

January 6, 2016
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In 1999, Broaddrick alleged that Bill Clinton had raped her in her Little Rock hotel room in 1978. She said she had continued to support him because she was in denial. Bill Clinton has denied Broaddrick’s allegations and those of other women who have accused him of misconduct.

Broaddrick said in the interview that Hillary Clinton had pushed her to remain silent about what happened. “She grabs my arm, very deliberately, and looks at me very angrily” and reminds her that everything she does could have an impact on the campaign, Broadddrick said.

Clinton’s campaign did not immediately respond to Broaddrick’s comments.

Anita Kumar: 202-383-6017, @anitakumar01