Donald Trump is using three women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct — as well as one woman who accused a man Hillary Clinton defended in court of raping her when she was 12 years old — to attack the Democratic nominee.
In a stunning event 90 minutes before the second presidential debate, Trump made a surprise appearance alongside Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Kathy Shelton. The man accused of raping Shelton was convicted of a lesser charge and served 10 months in jail.
The event came with Trump under fire himself over his sexually aggressive comments in a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video.
“Mr. Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me. I don’t think there’s any comparison,” Broaddrick said at the event.
Trump has repeatedly used Clinton’s sex allegations to hit Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, raising them occasionally throughout 2016.
In an Instagram video posted in January, Trump — with the caption “Hillary and her friends!” — highlights Hillary Clinton’s relationships with Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby and Anthony Weiner, the former congressman who shared lewd pictures with women he’d met online while married to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Trump has also used Bill Clinton’s sex life in attacks on the campaign trail and on Twitter, where he condemned Clinton’s “terrible record of women abuse.”
Asked about Trump’s attacks in January, the 42nd president passed up an opportunity to hit back.
“I have no interest in getting involved in (Republican Party) politics or doing anything except working to help Hillary,” Clinton told reporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
“Donald Trump says a lot of things,” he added.
Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who has accused Clinton of raping her decades ago while he was the attorney general of Arkansas, tweeted Wednesday: “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.”
Hillary Clinton herself commented on sexual assault in general in a late-November tweet, saying, “Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported.”
In December 2015, her comment came up on the campaign trail when, during a New Hampshire event, a woman asked, “You recently came out to say that all rape victims should be believed. But would you say that Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones be believed as well?”
Clinton responded: “Well, I would say that everyone should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence.”
Here’s a list of the sex-related allegations Bill Clinton has faced.
It focuses only on the encounters detailed during Clinton’s presidency — not the allegations made or revealed before or after he left the White House. And it includes charges leveled by the women themselves.
Lewinsky affair
Monica Lewinsky — The White House intern’s affair during Clinton’s first term in the President’s private rooms in the West Wing is the most famous Clinton sex scandal of all, and eventually leading to Clinton’s impeachment by the House. He was acquitted by the Senate. Clinton has admitted the relationship, telling the nation in a televised address that, “Indeed I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate.”
Allegations of non-consensual encounters
Juanita Broaddrick — The Arkansas nursing home administrator alleged in a 1999 Dateline NBC interview that Clinton had raped her in 1978, when she visited Little Rock for a nursing home seminar. The White House denied the allegations in 1999.
Paula Jones — Jones has said that in 1991, Clinton propositioned her for sex and exposed himself when she was escorted to his room at a Little Rock hotel. She filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton in 1994 — two days before a three-year statute of limitations would have expired. Clinton agreed to a settlement in 1998 and paid Jones and her attorneys $850,000. And it was during that case that he initially denied having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Kathleen Willey — The Democratic activist and White House volunteer said that in 1993, Bill Clinton grabbed and kissed her in the Oval Office’s private study. Heckled over the accusation at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Sunday by a GOP state representative, Hillary Clinton emphatically declined to comment.
“You are very rude, and I’m not ever going to call on you,” Clinton said forcefully, looking directly at the woman. “Thank you.”
Allegations of affairs
Gennifer Flowers — During Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, Flowers said she’d had a 12-year sexual relationship with Clinton — reversing course from her earlier denial of such a relationship. In 1998, while under oath, Clinton admitted to a sexual encounter with Flowers.
Dolly Kyle Browning — Clinton’s high school friend said in a sworn declaration in 1998 that the two had off-and-on sexual encounters from the mid-1970s through January 1992. Clinton has not publicly responded to the allegation.
Elizabeth Ward Gracen — The woman who won the Miss America crown at the age of 21 in 1982 reversed her six-year-old denial in 1998 and said she’d had a one-night stand with Clinton in 1982. Clinton has denied the accusations.
Sally Perdue — The 1958 Miss Arkansas said in 1994 that she’d had an affair with Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas in 1983. She said she was told not to reveal the affair by a Democratic staffer in 1992 who she said warned “they knew that I went jogging by myself and he couldn’t guarantee what would happen to my pretty little legs.” Clinton also has not publicly responded to the allegation.