Before Juanita Broaddrick alleged on national television that President Bill Clinton raped her in 1978, she told Ken Starr and Clinton White House attorneys, and the reaction from one Clinton lawyer frightened Broaddrick.
Broaddrick, a former nursing home administrator, initially came forward publicly with her then 21-year-old story in 1999 to “NBC Dateline’s” Lisa Meyer. At the time, Clinton was finishing up his second term in the White House.
The Daily Caller spoke with Broaddrick in an extensive phone interview Wednesday about how she came forward and the events that followed.
In 1978, then-Juanita Hickey was a 35-year-old Clinton campaign worker for Attorney General Bill Clinton, who was in the middle of running for governor in Arkansas. Broaddrick’s main work, however, was at a nursing home where Clinton visited one day on a campaign stop/. He then invited Broaddrick to stop by campaign headquarters in Little Rock, the “NBC Dateline” transcript report says.
Broaddrick told “Dateline” that she was already planning to be in Little Rock for a seminar the next week, so she contacted Clinton’s campaign office when she arrived in the city.
“I did call and ask him if he was gonna be at the headquarters that day and he said no he didn’t plan to be there,” Broaddrick said. “He says, Clinton said, ‘Why don’t I just meet you for coffee in the Camelot coffee shop?'”
According to Broaddrick, the seminar she attended was held at the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock, but she said Clinton later insisted to meet her in her hotel room because reporters were at the hotel coffee shop. When asked if she though the invitation was odd, Broaddrick told “Dateline’s” Meyers:
“I was a little bit uneasy. But, I felt, ah, a real friendship toward this man and I didn’t really feel any, um any danger in him coming to my room. I sort of ushered us over to the coffee — I had coffee sitting on a little table over there by the window and it was a real pretty window view that looked down at the river. And he came around me and sort of put his arm over my shoulder to point to this little building and he said he was real interested if he became governor to restore that little building and then all of a sudden, he turned me around and started kissing me. And that was a real shock.”
Myers: “What did you do?”
Broaddrick: “I first pushed him away and just told him ‘No, please don’t do that,” and I forget, it’s been 21 years, Lisa, and I forget exactly what he was saying. It seems like he was making statements that would relate to ‘Did you not know why I was coming up here?’ and I told him at the time, I said, ‘I’m married, and I have other things going on in my life, and this is something that I’m not interested in.'”
Myers: “Had you, that morning, or any other time, given him any reason to believe you might be receptive?”
Broaddrick: “No. None. None whatsoever.”
Myers: “Then what happens?”
Broaddrick: “Then he tries to kiss me again. And the second time he tries to kiss me he starts biting my lip (she cries). Just a minute… He starts to, um, bite on my top lip and I tried to pull away from him. (crying) And then he forces me down on the bed. And I just was very frightened, and I tried to get away from him and I told him ‘No,’ that I didn’t want this to happen (crying) but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
Myers: “Did you resist, did you tell him to stop?”
Broaddrick: “Yes, I told him ‘Please don’t.’ He was such a different person at that moment, he was just a vicious awful person.”
Myers: “You said there was a point at which you stopped resisting?”
Broaddrick: “Yeah.”
Myers: “Why?”
Broaddrick: “It was a real panicky, panicky situation. I was even to the point where I was getting very noisy, you know, yelling to ‘Please stop.’ And that’s when he pressed down on my right shoulder and he would bite my lip.”
Years later Broaddrick found herself talking to independent counsel Ken Starr about the incident. Starr was originally appointed to his position by a special three-judge division of the D.C. Circuit in 1994 to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton’s alleged involvement in the Whitewater land scandal.
“The only time I came in contact with the [Clinton] administration was when Ken Starr’s people came to my attorneys office to either depose me or do an affidavit whatever it is they do,” Broaddrick told The Daily Caller.
According to Broaddrick, the White House lawyers and Starr came to her attorney’s office and questioned her. Her son, a lawyer as well, convinced his mother to come forward.
“My son, who is an attorney came to me beforehand, and he’s known this for years when he was in his 20s, and he said, ‘Mom, you have got to tell the truth. This is Ken Starr. This is for the impeachment and you have to tell the truth.'”
Broaddrick’s attorney agreed with her son and urged her to open up to the government prosecutors.
“So when I did, I remember one of the Clintons attorneys — it was two men and a woman who was there. I can remember when they asked me the question and I told the truth. I remember [one of the male Clinton lawyers] throwing something against the wall. And it frightened me. It just scared me,” Broaddrick added, “And one of Ken Starr’s attorneys said, ‘Let’s just calm down’ or something to that effect.”
Broaddrick noted the angry Clinton lawyer “just spewed from then on when I kept going on and told about the incident.”
Although conservative figures and news sites supported Broaddrick’s case, she found most news outlets and feminist groups remained silent about her.
Broaddrick is particularly appalled by a recent piece in Wonkette, which marginalized her charge against President Clinton.
“To sum up, I think Bill Clinton could very well have raped Juanita Broaddrick; that it doesn’t make him an evil man, or irredeemable (I’m Catholic; we’re all forgiven, if we’re sorry, and Broaddrick says Bill Clinton personally called her up to apologize). It doesn’t even necessarily make him a bad feminist — you know, later, once he stops doing that,” the article stated.
“I’m shocked,” Broaddrick reacted. “These people say that several of them had grandfathers they thought back then that would have done that. I cannot believe that. It’s not like it’s in Saudi Arabia.”
