Lewinsky was an adult, so Bill did nothing wrong, Hillary Clinton believes
Monica Lewinsky was an adult when having an affair with the US President Bill Clinton, and that absolves him of any responsibility, Clinton's ever-protective wife and failed presidential candidate Hillary has said.
Hillary Clinton was speaking to CBS' Sunday Morning when anchor Tony Dokoupil asked her about Bill Clinton's 1990s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Back then, he lied under oath that he had no sexual relationship with Lewinsky, and the scandal eventually led to impeachment procedures, but Clinton was acquitted in the end. Throughout it all, Hillary remained protective, even calling the entire case a "right-wing conspiracy."
Even though it all turned out to be true, Bill had done nothing wrong, Hillary believes. And when asked whether she believes he should have stepped down, she said: "Absolutely not." Dokoupil pressed the point, arguing that such an affair can be seen as an abuse of power for the sheer imbalance of said power between the US president and an intern.
"...who was an adult," Clinton answered, and immediately cut the line of questioning short, wading into a counter-attack about the sexual assault allegations leveled against Trump – who, most Democrats universally believe, should be impeached.
In the era of #MeToo, when sexual misconduct, or allegations thereof, return to bite powerful men in the backside sometimes decades after, Trump is sailing surprisingly effortlessly through his. At least 19 women have accused him, but he denies and dismisses the claims, at times accusing the women in question of getting paid by his political enemies.
Bill Clinton's own past, meanwhile, haunts him with more than just the Lewinsky scandal as well. Four women have accused him of misconduct in the 1970s and the 1990s. But his wife Hillary says it's "different" when it's about Bill, because there have been investigations – even when comparing them to Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the multiple FBI background checks that couldn't save him from having to testify along with a late accuser as he fought to secure the seat.
Such a distinction brought about the fury of Bill Clinton's most outspoken accuser Juanita Broaddrick, who outright called Hillary a "lying hypocrite." Broaddrick, whose case was never litigated, has started an online petition to "Order a federal investigation into sex crimes committed by Bill Clinton," which is still 65,000 signatures short of the 100,000 it needs to get to the White House.
