Clinton lawyer sought to cast doubt on Broaddrick's rape allegation
A tweet in January in which an Arkansas woman reiterated her claim that Bill Clinton raped her in 1978 prompted a longtime personal lawyer for the Clintons, David Kendall, to gather material casting doubt on the allegation, according to a hacked email released Saturday.
“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,” retired Arkansas nurse Juanita Broaddrick wrote on Twitter on January 6, 2016.
Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta apparently spoke with Kendall about the issue that night, with Kendall sending Podesta an email the following day en led, “History of Juanita Broaddrick Allegations.”
Kendall attached several do ents and said he was pulling his old files on the case to get more information. The memos he attached show that in 1998 Broaddrick signed an affidavit denying that the alleged rape ever took place. The affidavit was filed to try to head off a subpoena for Broaddrick’s testimony in connection with Paula Jones’ sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton.
However, when Independent Counsel
Ken Starr began looking into the episode, he offered Broaddrick immunity and she reversed course, saying that the rumors Clinton raped her were true. “Starr was seeking more evidence against the President, any way he could, and he immunized Broaddrick to protect her from any prosecution for perjury if she now changed her story. Voila! She did,” Kendall wrote.
Kendall also sent along a statement he issued in 1999, when NBC News aired an interview in which Broaddrick maintained the rape had occurred. In the statement, the Clinton lawyer denied any rape occurred, but seemed to leave open the possibility of a consensual encounter.
"Any allegation that the president assaulted Mrs. Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false," Kendall said then. Bill Clinton was asked about the incident at a press conference and deferred to his lawyer's statement.
Broaddrick, who appeared with other Clinton accusers and Donald Trump prior to this week’s presidential debate, also asserts that Hillary Clinton threatened her to keep quiet about the incident. Kendall’s email does not address that claim.
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