Last month, The Washington Free Beacon uncovered tapes of Hillary Clinton discussing “a fascinating case” in her legal career.
A case in which she defended the rapist of a 12-year-old girl.
A 41-year-old man named Thomas Alfred Taylor was accused of raping the child after luring her into his car. After his arrest, he requested a female attorney. The judge assigned Clinton (then Rodham) to the case. By all accounts, Clinton believed him to be guilty:
“I had him take a polygraph, which he passed - which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs,” said Clinton.
A young Hillary Rodham, before she was a defense attorney.
Of course, plenty of lawyers defend people they believe to be guilty quite regularly – that’s not the disturbing part of Clinton’s actions.
Clinton’s strategy focused on attacking the credibility of the victim.
Clinton said the victim was “emotionally unstable” and had a “tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing”:
“I have also been told by an expert in child psychology that children in early adolescence tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences and that adolescents in disorganized families, such as the complainant’s, are even more prone to exaggerate behavior… in the past [she] made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body [and she] exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”
The media, in the midst of its loving “Hard Choices” book tour coverage, failed to give this story the attention it deserved. Finally, in an interview on July 4, Clinton was asked about the case:
“When you are a lawyer, you often don’t have the choice as to who you will represent, and by the very nature of criminal law there will be those who you represent that you don’t approve of…. But at least in our system you have an obligation, and once I was appointed I fulfilled that obligation.”
On the surface, Clinton has a point: We are so blessed as Americans to live in a society where everyone is entitled to their day in court, no matter how heinous the crime.
This tradition dates back to John Adams defending those accused of committing the Boston Massacre in court. His decision to do so was very unpopular, and thus put his safety, the safety of his family, and his career at risk. He defended them because he knew a country that prided itself on self-governance, yet gave the government the power to throw anyone in jail for anything, would be hypocritical and thus doomed to fail.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton answers a question at the 2014 National Council for Behavioral Health Conference at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center at National Harbor, Md., Tuesday, May 6, 2014. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
In order to make our system work, a citizen must be considered innocent until proven guilty. The perpetrator of a crime - even a massacre - still must have a trial so the wrong person isn’t thrown behind bars, and so the government can’t imprison people without cause.
That is why I don’t object to the rapist having a fair trial.
I don’t even object to Clinton defending him.
I object to the tactics that she used in doing so.
Once you dig deeper, past her Adams-esque language, you uncover the depth of her deception.
Her best effort, her intellectual contribution to a “fascinating” case, her ability to “fulfill her obligation” to her client, was limited to the character assassination of the victim.
You see, Clinton is no Adams. Adams defended a murder to set a precedent for a legal system he helped build. Clinton destroyed the credibility of a 12-year-old rape victim to set a rapist free.
For all her fine words about “obligation,” the two actions are vastly different.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, the as-yet-unnamed victim, now 52, accused Clinton of deliberately lying about her in court documents, and later callously conceding her attackers’ guilt on the recordings.
“Hillary Clinton took me through hell,” the victim said.
HiIlary Rodham Clinton, right, listens before signing a copy of her new book for a wheelchair-bound woman on Tuesday June 10, 2014, at Barnes and Noble bookstore in New York. AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
She certainly has taken the victim through hell. According to the interview, she was a virgin before the attack. After, she spent five days in a coma, and several months recovering from the beating that accompanied the rape, and was told by her doctors that she would probably never be able to have children. Despite over 10 years of therapy, she struggled with her fear of men and overwhelming anger issues. She turned to drugs and spent time in prison. She has never married and does not have any children. She is now sober, but unemployed and living on disability.
Considering the severity of a rape charge, and the clearly difficult life the victim has lead afterward, Clinton appears awfully detached in all of her discussions about the case.
As Alana Goodman, The Washington Free Beacon reporter who broke the story, noted on Hannity:
“She didn’t make much of an emotional appeal, and a lot of the criticism of her after the Roy Reed tapes was that she came off as very callous and kind of cold on it…. She was laughing while describing how she was able to successfully plead down her client.”
Even MSNBC questioned Clinton’s actions. On July 8, "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski described Clinton on the tape as “boastful,” “dismissive,” and how “jarring” her words were. Their guest, the Rev. Al Sharpton, noted that Clinton’s words are “clearly not something she wants to have to defend, when you’re hearing your own voice taking so lightly one of her core issues, the value of women.”
Of course a lawyer can defend a client accused of something they find reprehensible. Of course somebody has to defend even the worst criminal in order to make our system of government work.
But a lawyer can still send a guilty client to jail without any of their client’s rights being violated.
“Got him off with time served in the county jail, he’d been in the county jail about two months,” Clinton says on the tape (mistakenly – he was actually sentenced to one year minus two months for time served), laughing off the reality of a rapist free to repeat his actions.
Why does this self-proclaimed advocate for women and children see this as a fitting punishment for her client?
I must say, as a woman, hearing a potential presidential candidate discussing their defense of a child rapist with such callousness makes my blood run cold. It certainly doesn’t make me think of anyone who has the audacity to call themselves a feminist. I for one fail to see how it is possible to romanticize a 41-year-old luring a 12-year-old into his car.
It is a gross irony to watch Clinton call herself an advocate for women and children while blaming a victim for her rape.
This “advocate for women and children” certainly failed this child, this woman.
Let’s not give her the chance to fail us.
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