As governor of Arkansas in 1984, a married Bill Clinton tried to get the woman recently hired to run New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s press operations to come up to his hotel room.
That past indiscretion is revisited in a new Capital New York profile of Karen Hinton, who de Blasio hired in May.
As the profile reports, Hinton told the story of her encounter with Clinton to former Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff for his 1999 book, “Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story,” which went behind the scenes of Clinton’s various scandals.
Hinton first met Clinton in a Greenville, Miss. restaurant in 1984. The 24-year-old Hinton was then working for the campaign of a state representative and was eating with a group of politicos and reporters. She said Clinton, who was in town to speak at a fundraiser, greeted her and her companions and immediately began ogling her.
“It’s hard to describe, but the way he looked at me — nobody could have missed it — it was a direct flirtation. He made direct eye contact — he looked me up and down — it was very clear,” Hinton told Isikoff.
Clinton joined the group and began discussed a variety of political issues. Hinton said she quickly forgot about Clinton’s come-on during the conversation in which he seemed to take an interest in her ideas.
“This man is giving me his undivided attention. Here I am, this 24-year-old, and I’m captivated by the fact that he’s sitting there listening to me,” Hinton said.
But Clinton had ulterior motives, the wide-eyed Hinton soon learned. She said that Clinton pulled out his pen and began scribbling on a napkin. He folded it and pushed it towards Hinton. She opened it up and saw a hotel room number followed by a question mark.
“I folded the napkin up and I didn’t look up and it all started to sink in,” Hinton told Isikoff. “Here I’d been talking to him for all this time, thinking he was interested in what I had to say and all he’s thinking of is how he could get his hand up my dress.”
She said that Clinton sat “gazing at me like he wants some kind of response.”
“I was offended,” she told Isikoff. “I felt a bit humiliated.” She said she avoided eye contact with Clinton and never did go to his room.
“It used to drive me crazy,” she told Isikoff. “I used to say to people, Why doesn’t anybody take this seriously? Why doesn’t it matter that we have a president who walks into a room and sees an attractive woman and proceeds to hit on her without any concern how that woman might feel about it?”
Hinton, who later worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development with de Blasio during the Clinton presidency, told Isikoff that most of the power players within the Democratic party knew of Clinton’s predilections but ignored them. She said that most thought he would never be able to mount a meaningful presidential bid, a prediction which proved inaccurate.
Isikoff became aware of Hinton’s claims through a Washington Post reporter. Hinton, who was the communications director for the Washington, D.C. school district at that time, told that reporter that because of her encounter with Clinton she believed allegations leveled against him by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state clerk. Jones filed suit in 1994 claiming that in 1991 she was escorted to then-Gov. Clinton’s hotel room in Little Rock. There, she said Clinton exposed himself and propositioned her.
Hinton’s claims stand apart from other Clinton accusers like Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broderick, and Katherine Wiley. Those accusations have ranged from sexual harassment to, in Broderick’s case, sexual assault. But all have been marginalized by Clinton supporters who claim they are all out for a payday. Hinton’s claims are harder to discredit given her lifetime working within the Democratic party and, now, for de Blasio.
It is unclear if Hinton’s encounter with Clinton has in any way effected her new boss’ relationship with the Clintons. While de Blasio has reportedly taken advice from Clinton, the relationship grew noticeably cold shortly before Hinton took the job in the de Blasio administration. Though the progressive mayor had managed Hillary’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2000, he raised eyebrows when in April he declined to endorse Clinton for president.
“Like a lot of people in this country, I want to see a vision,” de Blasio told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd at the time.