In a surprising development, Breitbart News appears to have done some actual by-God journalism. On the site’s homepage currently, Aaron Klein has a long piece about a heretofore-unknown victim of Bill Clinton:
Speaking publicly for the first time in a Breitbart News video exclusive interview, a former local television news reporter from Arkansas claims she was sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton on three separate occasions in 1980.
Leslie Millwee says that on two of the alleged occasions, Clinton groped her while he rubbed himself against her and reached climax.
After these alleged sexual assaults, Millwee claims, Clinton showed up at her apartment and knocked on her door for several minutes while trying to talk his way inside. She says that Clinton departed after she purportedly refused to respond.
Here’s the interview, in full:
Klein appears to have done due diligence on Milwee’s allegations. He spoke to Milwee’s supervisor at the time, as well as to two of the three friends Milwee says she told about the assault back in the 1990s. He notes that corroborating evidence is difficult to come by, the alleged assault having happened so long ago. He points to a memoir Milwee wrote in 2011 that seems to allude to the episodes, and observes what appear to be small lapses of memory. He challenges Milwee on potential inconsistencies or oddities in her story, including why it’s taken her 36 years to make her story public. He takes stock of similarities among her story and the stories of Clinton’s other accusers.
That is to say, this does not appear to be a hit job by a pro-Trump outlet, and if Milwee is lying (which, just to make clear, I have no reason to believe), it’s a stunningly detailed lie given an Oscar-worthy delivery.
All of that in mind, two thoughts:
First, as a crude political matter, it’s hard to see this mattering much, if at all, in the presidential race. No one is unaware of the accusations against Bill Clinton, most minds are made up about their truth and/or their relevance, and adding one more accusation to the pile is unlikely to suddenly make for a tipping point. Moreover, there’s no straightforward connection to Hillary here, except in Milwee’s explanation for why she didn’t come forward in the 1990s:
I watched the way the Clintons and Hillary slandered those women. Harassed them. Did unthinkable things to them. And I just did not want to be part of that. I had very small children at the time. I had a job in pharmaceuticals. It was a very conservative situation. I didn’t want to do anything to bring harm to my career. And my family.
Assuming that’s true, it’s another grim reminder that the notion of Hillary Clinton as some sort of “champion of women” is a farce. But it’s less obviously damning than Hillary’s treatment of Bill’s other accusers — well known in the 1990s, and documented again recently.
This will, however, make for an interesting media litmus test. Donald Trump’s accusers have been taken at face value and their claims given significant airtime. Obviously, that’s in no small part because the accusations square with Trump’s own hot-mic comments about what he does to women, and because Trump is on the ballot. But it’s fair to say that Klein has conducted more meticulous vetting than have any of the major networks that have publicized the claims against Trump, and a credible allegation against a former president is newsworthy by any definition. Isn’t it only fair, then, to give Milwee’s allegations attention, as well?
(Fair, yes. Likely, no.)