Hillary Clinton champions herself as a defender of women and girls. However, recently released audio recordings containing Hillary's account of a trial in which she defends a child rapist raise some disturbing questions. In May 1975, in Arkansas, she was asked by a judge to legally represent a 41 year old man by the name of Thomas Alfred Taylor, who had been one of two men accused of raping, and then assaulting a 12 year old girl. While Clinton was doing her legal duty as a public defender to represent this man to the best of her ability, despite his guilt or crimes, the rape victim claims that Clinton went above and beyond the call of duty to smear her reputation and lie about her actions in court.
The released tapes contain a series of interviews of Clinton with Arkansas reporter Roy Reed, who was researching an article on the Clintons that was ultimately never published. The Free Beacon found the tapes archived at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, amidst thousands of pieces of Clinton history that are being periodically released for public consumption.
One of the controversial aspects of this tape is the fact that Hillary is heard laughing after discussing her client's guilt.
“He took a lie detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs,” Clinton says on the recording, chuckling after her comment.
Clinton also admits some disquieting information about how she successfully got the only piece of physical evidence thrown out of the court.
She was able to seize a loophole which minimized the sentence of the suspect, 41-year-old Thomas Alfred Taylor. Even though Taylor initially faced 30 years to life in prison for his crime, Clinton negotiated a plea deal that sentenced him to just one year in county jail and four years of probation.
Hillary accomplished this feat by seeking out the services of a renowned expert in blood analysis. This expert's reputation pushed a nervous prosecutor into believing that his key piece of corroborating evidence - blood and bodily fluids on the victim's underwear - would be thrown out of court. Without this evidence, which would have sealed Taylor's fate, the prosecutor folded and accepted a plea to a lesser count.
VICTIM OF THE RAPE NOW SPEAKS OUT
The child rape victim of this case, who is now 52, has decided to speak out after being sickened by what she heard in the recently released audio tapes.
In a long, emotional interview with The Daily Beast, she accused Hillary Clinton of lying intentionally in her court documents, going to extraordinary lengths to discredit evidence of the rape, and later acknowledging and laughing about her attacker's guilt.
“Hillary Clinton took me through Hell,” says the rape victim (The Daily Beast has withheld her name out of concern for her privacy as a victim of sexual assault.)
The victim said if she saw Clinton today, she would call her out for what she sees as the hypocrisy of Clinton’s current campaign to fight for women’s rights compared to her actions regarding this rape case so long ago.
“I would say [to Clinton], ‘You took a case of mine in ’75, you lied on me… I realize the truth now, the heart of what you’ve done to me. And you are supposed to be for women? You call that [being] for women, what you done to me? And I hear you on tape laughing.”
The victim's claim that Hillary smeared her reputation is based on the statements made in a May 1975 court affidavit written by Clinton on behalf of her client.
“I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing,” Clinton, then named Hillary D. Rodham, wrote in the affidavit. “I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”
Clinton also wrote that a child psychologist told her that children in early adolescence “tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences,” especially when they come from “disorganized families such as the complainant.”
The victim emphatically denied Clinton’s accusations and said there has never been any explanation of what Clinton was referring to in that affidavit. She claims she never accused anyone of attacking her before her rape.
“I’ve never said that about anyone. I don’t know why she said that. I have never made false allegations. I know she was lying...I definitely didn’t see older men. I don’t know why Hillary put that in there and it makes me plumb mad (The Daily Beast).”
In the victim's interview with The Daily Beast, she recounted the details of her attack and the consequences it had for both her childhood and adult life: she was a virgin before the assault, she spent five days afterwards in a coma, it took her months to recover from the beating that accompanied the rape, and over 10 years in therapy. The doctors also told her she would probably never be able to have children.
PRIMARY SOURCES
So was Hillary merely doing her duty as a court appointed public defender, or did she take things too far? Discussing such a matter publicly is certainly unorthodox for most lawyers, let alone admitting her client's guilt on tape (which is supposed to be a confidential matter between client and lawyer). The documents of the trial and Hillary's account in the released audio tapes certainly raise some disturbing ethical questions. Check out the primary sources for yourself below:
COURT AFFIDAVIT: May 1975 court affidavit written by Clinton on behalf of Thomas Alfred Taylor
The rape victim uses this document as evidence that Hillary Clinton smeared her reputation following her rape
TAPE: Hillary speaks of defense of child rapist (Free Beacon, 6-15-14)
NEWS LINKS
Here they are: Hillary's 22 biggest scandals ever (WND, 5-18-15)
Exclusive: ‘Hillary Clinton Took Me Through Hell,’ Rape Victim Says (The Daily Beast, 6-20-14)
Did Hillary Clinton betray a criminal client? (CNN, 7-1-14)
Hillary Clinton stands by her defense of 1975 rape suspect (CBS News, 7-8-14)
Hillary Clinton Refuses To Apologize For Laughing About 12-Year-Old Rape Victim She Maligned In Court (Daily Caller, 7-8-14)