In 1975, a court appointed Hillary Rodham (not yet married to Bill Clinton) to defend an accused child rapist. Clinton evidently took that case on with relish. According to the victim, a 12-year-old girl at the time, Clinton lied about her in court in order to get the rapist’s sentence drastically reduced.
Josh Rogin of the Daily Beast interviewed the victim.
The victim’s allegation that Clinton smeared her following her rape is based on a May 1975 court affidavit written by Clinton on behalf of Thomas Alfred Taylor, one of the two alleged attackers, whom Clinton agreed to defend after being asked by the prosecutor. Taylor had specifically requested a female attorney.
“I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing,” Clinton, then named Hillary D. Rodham, wrote in the affidavit. “I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”
Clinton also wrote that a child psychologist told her that children in early adolescence “tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences,” especially when they come from “disorganized families, such as the complainant.”
The victim vigorously denied Clinton’s accusations and said there has never been any explanation of what Clinton was referring to in that affidavit. She claims she never accused anyone of attacking her before her rape.
The victim’s statement squares up well with an assessment of Clinton by someone else who came into professional contact with her in a completely different setting. Clinton worked as a staffer on the Watergate investigation. Her supervisor, lifelong Democrat Jerry Zeifman, fired her from that job “Because she was a liar. She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”
In the rape case, Clinton seems to have exhibited similar behavior.
The 1975 case sheds considerable light on the character of Hillary Clinton. Lawyers are charged with defending their clients to the best of their ability, within the law and the bounds of ethics, whether they believe their clients are guilty or not. Tapes discovered University of Arkansas by the Washington Free Beacon reveal that Clinton knew that her client was guilty. She chuckled about getting him a light sentence for child rape.
Defending him not only did not require her to lie on his behalf, if the victim’s statement is accurate, Clinton’s actions were unethical and illegal.
Hillary Clinton claims to be both a champion of children and of women. But she was willing to lie in court to save a rapist — he was convicted of a lesser charge thanks to Clinton’s maneuvers — who had victimized a young girl. This was Hillary Clinton at the foundation of her career.
Clinton must have more to hide. One of her major donors has banned the Free Beacon from the University of Arkansas archive where the damning tapes were discovered.
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