Ted Bundy said it was consensual too.
Clinton privately admits sex with Juanita Hickey (Broaddrick), but still claims it wasn't rape
By Daniel J. Harris
Capitol Hill Blue
As the White House maintains an official silence on Juanita Broaddrick's charges of rape, Bill Clinton has admitted privately to his closest advisors he was with her at the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock on April 25, 1978, and that they did have sex, but he claims the sex was consensual, not forced.
"The President has admitted to his closest advisors that he and the woman had a sexual encounter on that morning, but he maintains it was consensual sex and says he did not, in any manner, assault her," one White House source confirmed over the weekend. "It is a very, very sticky situation."
Other sources say the President's legal advisors have told him to admit nothing about that morning 21 years ago, fearing that a confirmation of even a consensual sexual encounter between him and the Arkansas nursing home operator would further establish her credibility and raise even more public doubts about his.
"There is a problem here," one aide said. "The President cannot deny being at the hotel. He was. He cannot deny sex. There was sex. But he does deny rape."
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has known for several years about Clinton's visit to the hotel when he was Arkansas Attorney General and is part of the team of advisors guiding the current White House strategy, sources say.
A number of Washington reporters have been told, on "background" that Clinton has admitted at least a sexual encounter with Mrs. Broaddrick, whose name was Juanita Hickey at the time.
William Bennett, author of The Death of Outrage, told NBC's Tim Russert on Meet the Press Sunday that reporters have been backgrounded on the issue.
"On background, as you know, as your reporters have pointed out, the White House people are saying, 'Well, he was in the hotel room, but if something went on, it was consensual,'" Bennett said. "Now, is it too late to ask for an inquiry on this."
But White House sources tell Capitol Hill Blue that there is no longer any doubt over whether or not the President has sex with Mrs. Hickey (Broaddrick). The only question is over whether or not the sex was rape.
"There are plausible charges of rape here-rape, by the man who is now president of the United States," Bennett continued. "It's not a question of impeachment. It is not a question of conviction. It is a question of asking for answers from the president of the United States. He's got records, when he was attorney general of Arkansas. They're in his personal possession of where he is on that date. He will not release those records."
Broaddrick, in interviews with The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and NBC's Dateline, tells a detailed and horrifying story of rape by Clinton in the hotel room in 1978. The encounter left her with a severely swollen and cut lip, a fact corroborated by three other witnesses.
But the White House fears that admission of yet another sexual encounter by Clinton, even if consensual, would worsen the shift of public opinion that started with the emergence of Broaddrick's story. Polls taken after her appearance on Dateline show that a majority of Americans believe her story of rape and not the President's carefully worded denial that was issued in a short, two-sentence statement through attorney David Kendall.
"Any allegation that the president assaulted Ms. Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false," Kendall said. "Beyond that, we are not going to comment."
As with past Clinton denials, Kendall's statement is less than it seems when examined closely. Clinton was not "the President" in 1978 (Jimmy Carter was). "Mrs. Broaddrick" was in fact "Mrs. Hickey" and the charge was not "assault" but sexual assault and rape.
Others say White House stonewalling has already increased public doubts about Clinton's behavior.
"There's erosion, we can't deny that," one aide said Sunday. "We have to recognize the potential for real damage here."
Democrats are also worried about erosion of support from women's groups that backed Clinton through both the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky scandals.
When asked if Broaddrick's story had damaged the President, NOW President Patricia Ireland said "he is seriously damaged at this point."
Although much of the mainstream press is still shying away from the Broaddrick story, the Saturday New York Times editorialized:
Unless Mr. Clinton wants to serve out the remaining two years of his presidency oddly isolated from the people he leads, he must find a way to resume a normal dialogue with the American people and the press. It may be that he can add little to David Kendall's terse denial about the Broaddrick allegation, but it would be nice to hear Mr. Clinton himself address the matter and provide his version of what transpired, if, in fact, the two did meet in a Little Rock hotel room in 1978.
But while the majority of mainstream news outlets in the U.S. ignore the Broaddrick story, some news organizations have started to investigate charges that Clinton assaulted a young woman in England while he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in 1969 and another young woman while he was a law student at Yale University. Capitol Hill Blue, which first published the story of those and other forced sexual attacks by Clinton over the last 30 years, has received more than a dozen inquiries from news organizations in the U.S. and England from journalists investigating the incidents.
"We've tried to be a helpful as we can while at the same time protecting the sources that put their faith in us," said Capitol Hill Blue publisher Doug Thompson. "The bottom line is we did our own legwork and investigation into these charges and the best advice we can offer to other news organizations is that they do the same."
The White House did not respond to calls for comment over the weekend.
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