Hillary Clinton denied in an interview published Tuesday that she knew about sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein, even though at least two prominent celebrities have said they warned the Democrat’s inner circle about the disgraced Hollywood mogul.
“Speaking of Hollywood, with his trial in the news right now, do you have regrets about your lengthy association with Harvey Weinstein?” Lacey Rose of Hollywood Reporter asked Clinton.
“How could we have known?” the former secretary of state replied.
“He raised money for me, for the Obamas, for Democrats in general. And that at the time was something that everybody thought made sense. And of course, if all of us had known what we know now, it would have affected our behavior.”
Actress Lena Dunham and journalist Tina Brown have said they told close Clinton associates about Weinstein’s sordid behavior. Weinstein has been indicted on a slew of sex crimes charges in New York and Los Angeles.
Dunham told The New York Times for a story published Dec. 5, 2017, that she told Kristina Schake, the Clinton campaign’s deputy director of communications, about first- and second-hand rumors she had heard about Weinstein.
“I just want you to let you know that Harvey’s a rapist and this is going to come out at some point,” Dunham recalled telling Schake.
NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 24: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and producer Harvey Weinstein attend the TIME 100 Gala, TIME’S 100 Most Influential People In The World, cocktail party at Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 24, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for TIME)
“I think it’s a really bad idea for him to host fund-raisers and be involved because it’s an open secret in Hollywood that he has a problem with sexual assault,” she also told the Clinton aide. (RELATED: Hillary Clinton Dined With Harvey Weinstein Following Election Loss)
Despite the alleged warning, Clinton had dinner with Weinstein in the weeks after her loss to Donald Trump.
Tina Brown, the former editor of The Daily Beast, said she told someone close to Clinton in 2008 that she “was hearing that Harvey’s sleaziness with women had escalated since I left Talk in 2002” and that Clinton “was unwise to be so closely associated with him.”
NEW YORK – OCTOBER 25: Producer Harvey Weinstein and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) attend the “Finding Neverland” premiere at the Brooklyn Museum October 25, 2004 in New York City. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images)
Journalist Ronan Farrow said Clinton gave him the cold shoulder after she learned that he was investigating Weinstein for a story that helped spark the #MeToo movement.
“Hillary Clinton had scheduled an interview while it was at the height of the Weinstein reporting and her folks got in touch and said, ‘We hear you’re working on a big story.’ [They] sounded very concerned and tried to cancel that interview,” Farrow told The Financial Times in a 2019 interview.
Farrow told BuzzFeed News on Oct. 15, 2019, that Clinton’s lack of support for his investigation of Weinstein felt like a “gut punch.”
“It is an example of how power protects power,” he said of Clinton.
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