Hillary Clinton was erratic First Lady, 'violent' to husband, staff - Secret Service author
Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, was a volatile and at times violent presence as First Lady during her husband Bill's two terms in the White House, according to a new book by an ex-Secret Service agent.
Hillary's frequent outbursts and a willingness to violently confront her husband left Secret Service agents and White House staff on edge, writes Gary Byrne, a Clinton-era Secret Service officer, in his forthcoming book, “Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses his Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate.”
Byrne, a veteran of the military and federal law enforcement, said he was posted near the Oval Office during Bill Clinton's presidency, affording the agent a firsthand look at Hillary, who he says is too “erratic, uncontrollable and occasionally violent” to become president.
“What I saw in the 1990s sickened me,” Byrne wrote, according to the New York Post, which was offered an advanced copy of the book.
Ex #Clinton Secret Service agent speaks out against #Hillary Clinton in his new book 'Crisis of Character'. pic.twitter.com/nea89uTcjM
— Hava Batia (@HavBat22) June 5, 2016
Byrne goes on to claim fierce, obscenity-laced tirades by Hillary Clinton directed at White House staff, Secret Service agents and her husband.
“Hillary Clinton is now poised to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, but she simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve in the office,” Byrne wrote, adding that she once attempted to have Secret Service banned from the White House.
Bill and Hillary Clinton had at least one "violent encounter," Byrne wrote, ahead of a major, national presidential address. In fact, Secret Service staff would discuss how to keep Hillary Clinton from physically harming her husband. One morning in 1995, Byrne said he arrived at the White House to find a smashed blue vase and a "put-a-steak-on-it black eye" on the president.
“From the bottom of my soul I know this to be true. And with Hillary’s latest rise, I realize that her own leadership style — volcanic, impulsive, enabled by sycophants, and disdainful of the rules set for everyone else — hasn’t changed a bit," Byrne wrote.
Byrne also mentions moments in which he walked into a room where Bill Clinton was “involved inappropriately with a woman" who was neither Hillary Clinton nor White intern Monica Lewinsky. Byrne was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury regarding the investigation into Bill Clinton's affair with Lewinsky.
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign waved off the book as another "nonsense" attempt by author's to smear the former US secretary of state amid an election season. Previous books have claimed that Clinton verbally abused Secret Service agents and other White House staff.
“Gary Byrne joins the ranks of Ed Klein (author of 'Unlikeable The Problem with Hillary') and other ‘authors’ in this latest in a long line of books attempting to cash in on the election cycle with their nonsense,” spokesman Nick Merrill said, according to the Post. “It should be put in the fantasy section of the book store.”
Byrne's book is not the first time Hillary Clinton has been accused of violent behavior towards her husband. Books such as“American Evita: Hillary Clinton’s Path to Power,” by journalist Chris Andersen, and "The Clintons' War on Women," by Roger Stone, a longtime conservative political operative and current advisor to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, have alleged abusive outbursts by Hillary Clinton aimed at Bill Clinton, especially involving the former president's supposed philandering.
Bill Clinton's alleged infidelity before and during his two terms in the White House, as well as various Clinton family scandals dating back to the Clintons' reign as governor and First Lady of the state of Arkansas, have been well-documented in recent decades. In a 1998 interview, Clinton, responding to the years of attacks, mostly by conservative opponents of the couple, and accusations that Bill Clinton had lied under oath about an affair with Lewinsky, said that there was a "vast right-wing conspiracy" out to get her and her husband.
"I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this — they have popped up in other settings. This is — the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."
Byrne's book will be released on June 28 but has already jumped to the top spot on Amazon's best-seller list.
