Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump held a press conference Sunday night just ahead of the second 2016 presidential debate.
The press event featured four women who accuse former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton of misconduct – rape in the case of the former, and Mrs. Clinton’s defense of an alleged child rapist in the latter.
Coming on the heels of the release of a recording featuring raunchy comments by Trump, the event was an attempt to shift the spotlight heading into Sunday’s debate away from the controversy – and onto the former First Couple’s own scandals involving women.
The four backed Trump, with one, Juanita Broaddrick, saying Trump’s foul language pales in comparison with Mr. Clinton’s misdeeds.
“Actions speak louder than words,” she said. “Mr. Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me. And Hillary Clinton threatened me. I don’t think there is any comparison.”
Broaddrick, a volunteer worker for Bill Clinton’s 1978 gubernatorial bid, has claimed that Clinton violently raped her while she was working with his campaign, and that Mrs. Clinton subsequently threatened her.
Also present was Paula Jones, a then-Arkansas state employee who sued Clinton for sexual harassment, after he allegedly exposed himself to her. The president ultimately settled out of court with Jones to the tune of $850,000.
Kathleen Willey, a White House aide in the early 1990s, accused President Clinton of sexual assault.
The fourth woman present at Sunday’s press conference, Kathy Shelton, was raped by Thomas Alfred Taylor, a client of Mrs. Clinton in 1975 trial. Taylor, who passed a lie-detector test, was able to able to plea down to minor charges, in part due to the inadmissibility of forensic evidence.
Shelton accused Clinton of going beyond her duty as an attorney defending her client and abusing Shelton, then a 12-year old girl – arguing in court that she was possibly “mentally unstable” and may have been “seeking out older men.”
“I don’t think [Clinton is] for women or girls,” Shelton told the Daily Mail. “I think she said anything she can to get in the campaign and win. If she was, she wouldn’t have done that to me at 12 years old.”
Recordings of Mrs. Clinton later revealed her laughing off the subject, saying her client’s ability to pass the lie detector test “forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs.”