Bill and Hillary Clinton
[Editor's note: WND sent Candice Jackson, attorney and author of the acclaimed book "Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine," to Arkansas to conduct a rare in-person interview with Juanita Broaddrick, who claims Bill Clinton raped her in 1978. Jackson's revealing, in-depth interview with Broaddrick is presented here for the first time. For those not familiar with the actual details of Clinton's alleged felonious sexual assault on Broaddrick, WND has published the entire Broaddrick rape narrative from "Their Lives" here.
What follows, as Jackson explains, poignantly and in detail, reveals for the first time how Broaddrick's life – like that of so many others – has been deeply and permanently scarred by her alleged unwanted sexual encounter with Bill Clinton. Broaddrick also details Hillary Clinton's "haunting" and intimidating interaction with her following the sexual assault.]
Advertisement - story continues below
By Candice E. Jackson
Juanita Broaddrick first spoke publicly about her experience being raped by Bill Clinton in 1999. I met her while featuring her story in my book, "Their Lives: The Women Targeted By The Clinton Machine." She has largely stayed out of the public eye for the last decade, but she has spoken out during this 2016 election cycle to urge the American public to refuse to elect Hillary Clinton to the presidency. I was honored to meet with Juanita in her Van Buren, Arkansas, home to talk about the long-lasting impact the Clintons' abuse has had on her life.
TRENDING: 29-year-old professor suddenly drops dead while playing basketball on campus
Juanita Broaddrick
The brutal sexual assault itself has been described in Juanita's own words in the Wall Street Journal, on NBC's "Dateline" with Lisa Myers, and in my book "Their Lives." This interview isn't about cheap headlines promising new revelations of details surrounding the rape itself. This is about sharing publicly new details of how the rape has affected Juanita over her lifetime. It's also about presenting Juanita's experience to a new generation, including millennials who may be more open-minded to hearing the truth about the Clintons now than their baby boomer parents were in the 1990s.
Advertisement - story continues below
The rape is described by Juanita Broaddrick to Candice Jackson in gruesome detail here.
Juanita created a social media firestorm earlier this year by tweeting that she had been "dreading seeing my abuser on TV campaign trail for enabler wife ... but his physical appearance reflects ghosts of past are catching up." One of the many media figures who called her after this tweet was Andrea Mitchell of NBC. Because she'd had a positive experience with Lisa Myers with NBC back in 1999, Andrea Mitchell was one of the few calls Juanita returned in the aftermath of her trending tweets. Andrea Mitchell asked her just one question, listened to her answer, and told Juanita condescendingly, "We're not going to air anything with you because you have nothing new to add." Juanita felt bewildered by Andrea Mitchell's dismissive attitude.
Nothing new? Hardly. What happened to Juanita in that Little Rock hotel room at the hands of Bill Clinton in 1978 is "nothing new," and Hillary's inimical confrontation of Juanita weeks later, and Bill Clinton's much-delayed and dubious "apology" to Juanita years later are historical events that haven't changed for three decades. What's new is that Hillary Clinton has all but secured the Democratic Party's nomination for president, and Juanita Broaddrick is willing to bravely come forward to shed new light on the lifetime of pain Bill and Hillary Clinton have caused her (and so many women like her).
'I wouldn't invite them to my house'
When I pull up to the security gate in front of Juanita's property, I stop a moment to appreciate the beauty of her 20-plus acres of landscaped property framing a lovely, stately home with a charming wraparound porch. Over the nearly 20 years since her story first became public, Juanita has allowed only two other journalists into her home. The first was Dorothy Rabinowitz, writing for the Wall Street Journal in 1999. The second was Sean Hannity several years ago. The interview with Dorothy Rabinowitz became the first publication telling Juanita's story in her own words, and that interview almost didn't happen. Juanita tells me smilingly that she had refused multiple requests for the interview, but "Dorothy didn't take no for an answer. She flew into town and called again for an interview, and I said 'no' again. But she drove up to the gate outside my home and had her driver ask through the intercom, 'Could Ms. Rabinowitz please use your bathroom?'" Juanita laughs and says, "That's how that interview happened – southern hospitality was my downfall."
Advertisement - story continues below
Although we keep in touch, Juanita and I haven't seen each other in several years, and she greets me with a warm smile and hug. "Come on in, honey!" She immediately offers me a soda, asks about my kids, and gives me a tour of her 5,000-square-foot two-story house, which she has recently remodeled. The spacious, open floor plan, large picture windows, reading nooks and exposed wood beam ceilings yield a feeling of tasteful elegance and southern comfort. We walk leisurely through the house as she points out family photos – her son, Kevin, at different ages growing up, her parents smiling broadly leaning over the counter of their dry cleaning business, Juanita and her sister as young girls sporting lace-up shoes. I spot an interesting contraption sitting on the stairway that looks sort of like the tray of a highchair, but with a strap and spaces to place books and crayons. When I ask about it, she says it's something she invented to be placed around a car seat when her grandson was younger so he could do activities in the car. I'm impressed with her creativity and thoughtful doting on her grandson (and I wish she'd make two of them for me, to entertain my own twin toddlers).
After the tour, we settle onto comfortable couches and talk. Her soft, delightful southern accent and quick smile make for easy conversation. I'm amused to hear current pop music drifting through the house from a radio; Adele, Ed Sheerhan and Hozier wasn't the background music I would have predicted for this interview. "I like being 73 and knowing the current music," she laughs. After an hour or so, she insists on making me a sandwich. "I'm a natural caretaker," Juanita smiles as she insists I have another Sprite. "It's the nurse in me." We talk over lunch and into the early afternoon. "I haven't thought about many of these things in years," she sighs.
In mid-afternoon, it's time for Juanita to pick up her grandson, Ridge, from school. Before we leave, she takes me out in her utility vehicle for a tour of her acreage. On the way out to the garage, she introduces me to Gracie, her friendly, fluffy, white Great Pyrenees, and to George, her skeptical orange tabby cat. She drives us around her beautifully manicured grounds (which she mows herself), pointing out the large pond she created and the fire pit her grandson built for her. She spots her ex-husband David Broaddrick's red pickup in the distance, on the adjoining acreage that he obtained as part of their divorce. "We don't speak," Juanita confides, "but it's fine."
Advertisement - story continues below
As we pull up to his school, Juanita's 13-year-old grandson, Ridge, hops in the back of the SUV, answering his grandma's questions about his school day. We head back to Juanita's house, where Ridge plays outside until his dad comes to pick him up in the early evening. Juanita and I sit outside on her porch, sipping Sprite and talking as we watch Ridge ride an ATV around the property.
When Juanita's son, Kevin, arrives, the four of us go out to dinner together, talking about favorite foods, movies and our respective predictions for the outcome of the political primary elections. After a truly delightful day and evening, I say my goodbyes and drive my rental car back to the airport. On the flight home, I think about the dichotomy that is Juanita's life – a happy, robust grandmother living in an idyllic country manor, whose inner self has been so deeply and permanently marred by this single instance of sexual assault. I think about how much I admire Juanita's determination and perseverance to create a meaningful, happy life for herself despite what the Clintons put her through. And I say a little prayer that this country will do the right thing this year and deprive Bill and Hillary Clinton from grasping more power. "I wouldn't invite them to my house," I hear Juanita saying to me quietly. "I just can't imagine that the American people will invite them back to the White House."
Juanita Broaddrick, right, with residents of her Arkansas retirement home and Bill Clinton in April 1978, the same month she says Clinton raped her
'I could never forgive them'
Just one or two days after she'd been raped by Bill Clinton, Juanita drove her van to a town burning. (A local company sponsored these public bonfires on occasion.)
"I pulled up to the fire, opened up the back door of my van and flung all the Clinton for Governor signs and other crap into the burning pile," she said. "I just stood there and watched them burn, crying."
After the rape, Juanita quit allowing salesmen or other businessmen to be alone with her in her office.
"I told my employees that this was a new policy, no men allowed in my office," she said. "I didn't tell them why."
About two weeks after the rape, Juanita reluctantly showed up at a Clinton for Governor campaign event that she'd committed to attending prior to being assaulted. She hoped to show up briefly and leave before the Clintons arrived, but instead, Hillary Clinton spotted Juanita and walked directly up to her, grabbed her hand, looked her in the eyes and said deliberately, "We want to thank you for everything that you do for Bill." Juanita tried to step back but Hillary tightened her grip on Juanita's hand and repeated, "Everything you do for Bill." The cold look in Hillary eyes still haunts Juanita. "Bill Clinton was charming and personable," Juanita says, "but Hillary never had that – she's just cold." Juanita understood Hillary's calculated "greeting" as a threat to keep quiet.
Watch Broaddrick's interview with Sean Hannity about that moment with Hillary Clinton:
Following a pattern of incredible ego and brazenness, Bill Clinton tried to get Juanita to see him again several times by calling her at her business in the months following the rape. She refused to take his calls and avoided events in Little Rock for a long time. Bill Clinton's legendary charm is part of why Juanita blamed herself for the attack for a long time. He was charming and friendly enough to make her feel safe taking a meeting with him alone in a hotel room, and she blamed herself for agreeing to meet with him and not seeing warning signs. Sadly, it's a phenomenon common to rape victims. Self-blame is often the first defense of a victim's psyche, and it explains why many sexual assaults go unreported.
For months after the rape, Juanita experienced nightmares that left her sleepless, and panic attacks so severe she would feel that she couldn't breathe and believed she was about to die. She also developed claustrophobia that she'd never had before, and she suffers from it to this day.
"It's been embarrassing at times," she says heavily. "If I'm riding in a car with friends, I can't sit in the back seat unless it's a four-door car. I guess I just can't handle feeling trapped, like I can't escape. I can't sit in the back of a car or plane unless I'm right by the door. It brings back the fear of being held down, like in that hotel room [with Clinton]."
Her eyes harden.
"There are so many ways that evil man has affected my life. I try not to think about it too much. You don't realize all the ways something like this changes you, the way you do things, your habits and routines, and you don't realize it's because of what he did unless you sit and think about it."
I asked if she ever sought psychological treatment or counseling after the rape. She sighs and shakes her head sadly. "It wouldn't have occurred to me. You know, it's a small town here, and there were two psychiatrists, both men, neither of whom I would have felt comfortable talking to. I just tried not to think about it." In the 1990s, she recalls changing which church services she attended, so she wouldn't have to listen to the traditional Episcopal "Prayer for the President."
Dealing with the aftermath of the rape contributed to the demise of her second marriage, to David Broaddrick. Her trauma felt like a big block between them. "Here was me, there was him, and this was between us. David didn't know how to deal with it." She had a hard time with sexual intimacy. Once, David asked her if the sexual encounter with Clinton had been consensual. "He didn't really believe that," but he was frustrated at not being able to help Juanita.
Since the end of her marriage, she hasn't had much desire to date. She once went on Match.com after her divorce, saw a picture of a nice-looking man with a nice house and offered to meet him at a restaurant. When she showed up, she tells me disgustedly that her date was a shriveled up old man who'd had a stroke and could barely talk; his Match.com photo was 30 years old. She left without sitting through dinner. Romantic and sexual connections have remained difficult for her since the rape. She has felt afraid to trust men. This is another common experience for sexual trauma victims.
"I could actually have respected Hillary if she had divorced Bill in 1978. But I feel like she has always known about all of his dalliances and misdeeds either at the time or shortly after, and now we know their marriage is just an arrangement. I can't respect a woman like that." She pauses, reflecting, "I remember being shocked to hear that Hillary was pregnant. She'd been in Sweden or Switzerland or something like that when I heard it on the news. I was shocked because of what Bill had told me in that hotel room, you know, that I shouldn't worry about getting pregnant because he was sterile after having had the mumps."
Bill and Hillary Clinton
During years between the rape and when Bill Clinton ran for president, Juanita stayed out of the public eye and focused on raising her son and running her business. Rumors of her sexual assault by then-Gov. Clinton circulated throughout the state. Friends and family members in whom she'd confided had different opinions on whether she should come forward publicly. Her sister, Patricia, couldn't understand why Juanita didn't report the assault. Her sister's boyfriend, a Bush supporter in the 1992 campaign, urged Juanita to come forward and when she refused, he quit speaking to her. She believes that as governor, Bill Clinton commuted the sentence of the killer of Juanita's friends' father, out of spite and in a veiled message to Juanita that she should stay quiet in light of how much power Clinton held as governor. Those friends believed Juanita's account of the rape and later defended Juanita publicly when she told her story to the media.
Juanita had to tell her son about the rape when Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, because of the risk that her name would be dragged into the spotlight. "Telling Kevin was so hard," she recalls, "but I think he already knew" due to the rumors that had swirled around her since the assault occurred in 1978. Talking about this recently with 13-year-old Ridge, however, was even more difficult. Ridge heard about his grandma's sexual assault when he was on a middle-school field trip to the Clinton Library. "All of a sudden," Ridge tells me, "I heard my grandma's name as part of the tour." Juanita talked with him and asked him to watch her 1999 NBC "Dateline" interview, which he did. While the difficult conversation hasn't changed a thing about the close relationship between Juanita and her grandson, she's understandably angry about having to expose young Ridge to something so ugly.
"Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine" – available at the WND Superstore – is a wake-up call to Americans everywhere to re-evaluate this ruthless power couple and prevent Hillary Clinton from returning to the White House.
The last time Juanita saw Bill Clinton in person was when he approached her in the fall of 1991 as she was attending a nursing home industry event in Little Rock with two friends. Gov. Clinton called her out of the meeting and confronted her sheepishly: "Juanita, I'm so sorry for what I did. I'm not the man I used to be, can you ever forgive me? What can I do to make this up to you?"
Feeling shocked and sickened, Juanita told him to go to hell and walked away. She and her friends talked for days about whether or not to believe he was sincere – but they realized how insincere he was just a couple of weeks later when they heard him announce he was running for president. I ask if she's ever felt like Bill or Hillary regret what happened to her. "No," she says flatly. "And I could never forgive them."
Bill's self-serving apology gave Juanita one gift, however.
"In that moment," she says with her head lifted, "I stopped blaming myself and put the blame where it belonged, on him."
American success story
Juanita Broaddrick (Photo: Twitter)
Although she met Bill Clinton when he was running for governor, Juanita has never been particularly political or partisan. She doesn't believe there was much difference in the Arkansas business climate whether Democrats or Republicans were in charge. Her early political influence came from her dad, and his was a patriotic, nonpartisan view. She remembers her father proudly displaying on the wall of his shop a photo of John F. Kennedy he had taken at the Ft. Smith airport when JFK had come to Arkansas.
Although her parents were educated only until the fifth or sixth grade, her dad had memorized the Preamble to the Constitution and often called it "such a beautiful statement." She bears tremendous love and respect for her parents, both now deceased. "It's amazing how they were able to run and business and do all they did" from where they came from, she says tenderly. Her parents owned a dry cleaning business. "They would go to work at 7 a.m., come home at 7 p.m.," she recalls. "My sister Pat and I would play in the neighborhood, baseball in the street and roller skating."
Juanita and her sister lost their father in 1971 when he was only 56 years old. "He was such a joy," Juanita tells me, her eyes sparkling. "Everybody loved my father." Her mother, Mary Elizabeth, ran the dry cleaning business on her own after Juanita's father died. Juanita and her sister both went on to become nurses. Juanita was a popular cheerleader in high school. When she won the Miss Van Buren beauty contest, the $1,000 scholarship covered the cost of her nursing program. She and her sister were especially close in adulthood. Losing her sister this last December devastated Juanita. "She was such a strong person, and a sweetheart," Juanita says fondly.
I ask about her name, curious because "Juanita" doesn't seem like a common choice of name in Arkansas in 1942. Juanita gives a hoot of laughter and says, "Oh, that's my father. He and my mother couldn't think of a name for me when I was born. Finally my father said, 'I'm walking out of this hospital and I'm naming the baby after the first woman I meet.'" Perhaps her father was merely continuing a family tradition of interesting ways to name a baby, since his own parents named him Buster Brown Smith after their friend, the owner of the Buster Brown shoe company in Arkansas.
Juanita Broaddrick (Photo: Facebook)
Juanita is an American success story and an epitome of a strong, smart, independent woman. She started her nursing career working in nursing homes in 1964. "I never thought the business was run right," she says. Nursing homes made "indecent profit" by cutting corners on everything from the quality of food served to residents to the number of nurses on duty. "I just knew there was a way to make a profit while still taking care of residents." At age 29, she drafted up a business plan for a nursing home. She rounded up three business partners – two Ft. Smith businessmen and a doctor – and after a credit union denied her loan, she walked into the credit union president's office to personally plead her case for a loan. After Juanita implored him with the need for Van Buren to have a good nursing home (and maybe shed a few tears), the president approved the loan. "It was spontaneous," she tells me with a wink, "kind of like how I sent that tweet" responding to Hillary this year. "I get it from my father."
Following her mom's example as a businesswoman, Juanita owned and operated successful nursing homes in Van Buren for decades, buying out her business partners early on. She finally sold her businesses and retired in 2008. She's relieved to be out of the business now, admitting that the "regulations and lawsuits in my industry are mind-boggling." Her business acumen and hard work has made her financially comfortable and self-sufficient all her life. "I'm fortunate," she says, "not to feel like I'm in the same position as some of the other women involved with Clinton, not to feel forced financially to take money to tell my story." In fact, just recently Juanita refused an offer from a prominent conservative political action committee to be paid a salary to speak on behalf of the PAC.
'Hillary made it personal'
Juanita has paid a price for speaking out about her experiences with the Clintons. In 1999, during the time when she was speaking on the record to NBC for the first time, she came home from a ski vacation to find her home had been broken into. Her indoor cat was outside, and her answering machine tape had been stolen. She began to sense she was being followed and installed an imposing security gate leading up to her property.
Since coming forward publicly in 1999, Juanita is often recognized in public. Most of these encounters are supportive. She recalls that once, outside a Walmart in Ft. Smith, a woman approached her and told her of an incident in a Little Rock hotel where Clinton had physically groped her while he was governor. The woman didn't give her name but said, "I just wanted you to know there are more of us out here." Juanita is certain there are other victims like her who have never come forward. "Has Eileen Wellstone ever come out and said it?" she asks sadly. Rumors have swirled for decades that Wellstone was raped by a young Bill Clinton when they were fellow students at Oxford. Juanita understands why a victim would prefer to stay silent; the way that so many women have been smeared, threatened and intimidated by the Clinton team has made Juanita wary of speaking out.
Juanita remained silent when Hillary ran for president in 2008 and was relieved when the nomination was snatched from Hillary by Barack Obama. Before this year, the last time Juanita spoke out publicly against Hillary was when Hillary ran for U.S. Senate in 2000. Then, Juanita wrote an Open Letter to Hillary Clinton, confronting Hillary for the way Hillary covered up the assault for Bill. "I felt angry at the people of New York – how could they vote her in as a senator?" she says with a tone of dismay.
When asked why she chose to speak out publicly this year, Juanita smiles ruefully and answers, "It was all because of Hillary's tweet in December [2015] where she said we all need to 'believe the victims of sexual assault.' How can she be so ignorant? Doesn't she know we'll all come forward again? She was saying in that tweet that all of us are liars. Has she lost her mind?" When Hillary announced her campaign last year, Juanita felt disgusted. "I had a pit in my stomach thinking, 'Oh no, not this again.' But I had no intention of speaking out again," largely because her son, Kevin, didn't want to see his mother attacked all over again. But by sending that tweet, "Hillary made it personal; she pushed me past my tolerance." Even so, she recalls sitting at her computer trying to make up her mind whether to send out a responsive tweet. "I knew Kevin wouldn't be happy about it," she says regretfully, "but I had to do it."
"I was shocked at the aftermath of sending that one tweet," Juanita says bemusedly. "I barely knew how to use Twitter. I think I had six followers." All of a sudden, she received more than 100 phone calls – mostly media inquiries – and currently has 11,400 Twitter followers. People are listening to what she has to say, perhaps because she's a woman with more right than any of us to object to sending Hillary Clinton back to the White House.
'I even hoped he might just die'
"I'm so blessed. I've had this horrible thing happen to me but I'm so blessed." It's impossible not to admire a woman who has chosen to find the goodness in life despite the nightmare of being assaulted and threatened and then witnessing her perpetrators ascend to the heights of political power seemingly without consequence.
She's worked hard to build a life worthy of that declaration. Central to Juanita's happiness are her son, Kevin Hickey, and her grandson, Ridge. Kevin is a successful attorney with an expanding law practice. Ridge is a handsome, smart, polite, fun-loving 13-year-old who often spends afternoons with his grandma. Their Sunday family cook-offs at Juanita's house are filled with laughter, with each of them taking turns trying their hands at new dishes. Juanita also has weekly dinners with a group of church friends who "accept me for myself" and don't mention or ask about her past with the Clintons. Even when her Twitter comments placed her back in the news this year, her close friends "have all been so sweet and supportive."
As for the prospect of Hillary Clinton being elected president, Juanita says, "It would be devastating to me personally, but I also think it would be destructive to the United States. In my heart, I just can't believe it would actually happen."
If she could talk one-on-one with voters she would ask, "Do you know my story? Do you not believe us [all the women who have come forward]? If a voter says, 'It doesn't matter,' I just don't understand how that can be." She tries to avoid watching campaign coverage and focuses her time and energy instead on enjoying her family and friends. When she did see Bill Clinton on TV campaigning for Hillary, she wasn't at all sorry to see him looking "so terrible, like death warmed over."
She admits, "I even hoped he might just die on the table in his heart surgery."
America at a crossroads
Bill and Hillary Clinton largely succeeded in the 1990s classifying Bill's "woman problems" as merely about private affairs in a marriage, character flaws common to many married men, portraying Hillary as a betrayed wife standing by her husband. Juanita Broaddrick's experience, alongside those of so many other women, exposes the Clintons as a power couple bent on climbing the political ladder at any cost. Juanita Broaddrick has spent over three decades living with the pain, humiliation and anxiety caused first by Bill Clinton's sexual assault and then by Bill and Hillary and their smear team attempting to intimidate and discredit her.
The notion that Hillary Clinton can or should be a standard bearer for women's rights is a slap in the face to Juanita Broaddrick and to all victims of sexual abuse. It's difficult to identify a female public figure who has personally done more to destroy female victims than Hillary Clinton. Hillary's choice, long ago, to cover for and protect Bill from the consequences of his conduct (some of which has been criminal, even if no criminal prosecutions have been made) has made her an enabler and accessory to his many violations.
As Juanita said, if Hillary had stood on the side of morality and decency back in 1978, divorced Bill and denounced his rape of Juanita, and offered sympathy to Juanita for what she'd suffered, then perhaps Hillary would be viewed today as a respected champion of women. Instead, Hillary directed Clinton loyalists like Betsey Wright and James Carville to actively silence women who had crossed paths with Bill, by any combination of bribery, threats, blackmail, defamation and intimidation.
Our country stands at a crossroads – we can elect a female president who has spent decades punishing and destroying the lives of female victims of sexual abuse, or finally shut the door on Hillary Clinton's political career and someday elect a first female president worthy of representing women's rights. Nothing can erase the torment Juanita Broaddrick has suffered, but the American people can at least ensure that she doesn't have to watch her perpetrators rule the free world again.
