Harvey Weinstein: 'Beautiful Girls' Scribe Scott Rosenberg

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I Believe Juanita
by Michelle Goldberg
New York Times
November 13, 2017

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-- Limited Hangout, by Wikipedia

Juanita Broaddrick, center, who has accused Bill Clinton of raping her, at the second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Credit Evan Vucci/Associated Press

On Friday evening the MSNBC host Chris Hayes sent out a tweet that electrified online conservatives: “As gross and cynical and hypocritical as the right’s ‘what about Bill Clinton’ stuff is, it’s also true that Democrats and the center left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him.” Hayes’s tweet inspired stories on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, Breitbart and The Daily Caller, all apparently eager to use the Clinton scandals to derail discussions about Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for the United States Senate in Alabama who is accused of sexually assaulting minors.

Yet despite the right’s evident bad faith, I agree with Hayes. In this #MeToo moment, when we’re reassessing decades of male misbehavior and turning open secrets into exposes, we should look clearly at the credible evidence that Juanita Broaddrick told the truth when she accused Clinton of raping her. But revisiting the Clinton scandals in light of today’s politics is complicated as well as painful. Democrats are guilty of apologizing for Clinton when they shouldn’t have. At the same time, looking back at the smear campaign against the Clintons shows we can’t treat the feminist injunction to “believe women” as absolute.

Writing at Crooked.com, Brian Beutler warns that in future elections, right-wing propaganda will exploit the progressive commitment to always taking sexual abuse charges seriously. It’s easy to imagine an outlet like Breitbart leveraging the “believe women” rallying cry to force mainstream media coverage of dubious accusations.

The Clinton years, in which epistemological warfare emerged as a key part of the Republican political arsenal, show us why we should be wary of allegations that bubble up from the right-wing press. At the time, the reactionary billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife was bankrolling the Arkansas Project, which David Brock, the former right-wing journalist who played a major role in it, described as a “multimillion-dollar dirty tricks operation against the Clintons.” Various figures in conservative media accused Bill Clinton of murder, drug-running and using state troopers as pimps. Brock alleges that right-wing figures funneled money to some of Clinton’s accusers.

In this environment, it would have been absurd to take accusations of assault and harassment made against Clinton at face value.

David Brock, the conservative journalistic assassin turned progressive empire-builder, is sitting in a conference room in the Park Avenue South offices of the MWW Group, a public-relations firm owned by Democratic mega-donor Michael Kempner. Fifty-two years old with a silver pompadour, and wearing round glasses with wire frames, he’s barely recognizable as the skinny, dark-haired operative who, during the Clinton administration, had an answering-machine message that said, “I’m out trying to bring down the president.”

That, of course, was before he publicly repented, first in a 1997 Esquire article, “Confessions of a Right-Wing Hit Man,” and then in 2002’s self-flagellating book, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. It was before he founded Media Matters for America, which monitors the right-wing media, in 2004, and American Bridge, an unprecedented Democratic opposition-research organization, in 2010. It was before he became a favorite of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the very couple he’d spent his years as an enfant terrible trying to destroy....

These days, Brock has moved well beyond the repentance phase of his political turnaround. He’s no longer trying to ingratiate himself with the Democratic establishment—he’s now a part of it, employing hundreds of people at organizations with budgets in the tens of millions. Recently, his network has been experiencing a spurt of growth—one that’s likely to continue as the Democrats ramp up their efforts on the 2016 race after the disastrous midterm elections.

An avid Hillary Clinton supporter, Brock is already deeply engaged in the presidential contest. His group American Bridge captures almost every public utterance by prominent Republican politicians, using both DC-based researchers and a national network of professional trackers; it currently has people following all of the even remotely plausible contenders for the Republican nomination. Complementing that operation is Correct the Record, a subsidiary of American Bridge that Brock launched last year to push back against misinformation about Democratic presidential candidates, which so far has meant defending Clinton constantly and consistently.

-- How David Brock Built an Empire to Put Hillary in the White House: The Clintons’ former nemesis created an apparatus to fend off their enemies—right and left, by Michelle Goldberg

On Monday, Caitlin Flanagan, perhaps taking up Hayes’s challenge, urged liberals to remember some of what Clinton is said to have done. “Kathleen Willey said that she met him in the Oval Office for personal and professional advice and that he groped her, rubbed his erect penis on her, and pushed her hand to his crotch,” Flanagan wrote, recalling the charges Willey first made in 1998. It sounds both familiar and plausible. But Willey also accused the Clintons of having her husband and then her cat killed. Must we believe that, too?

Bullseye

On Election Day in November, a month before I was to give my deposition, I opened my front door and let Bullseye out. A sweet old cat, he was thirteen years old. He didn't go out much anymore and, when he did, it wasn't for long. He never went far and he always came right back. But not that day. That day, I watched Bullseye jump off the porch and I never saw him again.

I watched election returns and wondered where he was. The next day, I called a few neighbors to see if they'd seen a yellow tabby, a big guy with a red collar. If you lose an animal, the people around here will look. We're all animal lovers, and they knew how I felt. But all the homes were spread far and wide, surrounded by many acres of woods. No one had seen my cat.

I felt bad for Patrick, because he always thought of Bullseye as his cat. Eventually, I had to tell him and he got really angry at the thought that someone had harmed our old cat.

I was shocked when people later mocked me for being upset about Bullseye. People made terrible jokes about him, as if a cat isn't just as much a family pet as a dog. People would have been outraged if he had been a dog! Lucianne Goldberg, for one, made a really snotty remark on a talk show. I was incensed. I tracked her number down and called her. "You know, you don't have any right to make fun of my poor cat like you did today," I said. "Really! He was our pet!" She backed down and apologized right away.

***

Skull

On Monday, two days after I was deposed, I was home alone. Just as the sun was coming up, I opened my front door to let my dogs out. On the porch in front of me was a new horror. A small animal skull was lying on the bricks staring at me. It was bare bone, empty, dry, sitting a few feet from the door. It was the size of a cat's skull.

I thought of Bullseye. Had they had killed my wonderful old cat?

It was payback.

I didn't know what to do with it, and I thought, "I just can't deal with this." I got so mad, I went around to my backyard and I threw it into the woods as far as I could throw. I was really angry -- about the cat specifically, but generally about the scare tactics. I thought, I will not give in to these people!

But I was afraid to tell anybody. I was fearful that it was Bullseye and I didn't want to know. I didn't want to think that somebody would kill a cat -- kill my cat -- to intimidate me. So I didn't tell any officials about the skull right away.

When I finally did tell them about the skull, the FBI came out and found it. "We looked for shoe prints," said FBI investigator Dennis Alvater. "We looked around in the woods for any evidence of people watching the house. I wasn't able to find anything ... " But they did learn that the skull was not Bullseye's. It was a raccoon.

Cats, of course, sometimes drag small rodents to the porch, or bring home similar little gifts. But before this incident and since, not one of my animals has ever brought home any animal bones, and a dog or cat certainly couldn't present a raccoon skull with its face perfectly facing my front door. Besides, my habit is to have all the animals inside the house with me at night. I knew my pets did not put it there.

Later, I watched The Insider, a movie about a witness in a case against "Big Tobacco" and the reign of terror aimed at getting the witness to back away from testifying. The witness opened his mailbox and there was a bullet sitting there. It was a constant campaign of weird things going on. The witness felt like he was being watched. He just knew it. Jack Paladino, one of the Clintons' infamous private investigators, played himself in that movie, doing background research on the witness. I watched that movie with the hair standing up on the back of my neck and thought to myself, Boy, do I know about this!

***

Blarney

After staying in the Keys for most of the spring, I returned home to Virginia for the summer. When I went out in public, people recognized me and every single person who stopped me was kind, comforting, and supportive. To a person, they were compassionate. Their words meant so much to me, but I still felt uneasy in public. I was constantly checking my rearview mirror, looking over my shoulder. I knew they were following me, but where were "they"?

On the Fourth of July, I went out to a baseball game and party. I'd been gone all day and came home after dark. Once inside my house, I realized the door to my deck was open. A second-floor deck, it had no access to the yard. As I went to close the door and turn on the outside light, I saw my black and white cat, Blarney, on the deck. He was dead. A beautiful, longhaired cat with poochy white cheeks, Blarney was the prettiest cat I had ever owned. He was young and strong, healthy, and not quite full-grown. He was a sweetheart. And he was dead.

I called the FBI once again. "Well, now I've got a dead pet on my porch."

The veterinarian did a necropsy on Blarney but could never find the cause of his death. There was no reason why this one-year-old cat should have died. There was no pneumonia, no heart attack, no stroke, no feline leukemia, nothing. No reason. Cats don't just up and die, but they could find no reason for this cat to have died.

It scared me. It was so traumatic and painful that I buried it deep inside myself. I was emotionally overwhelmed, and part of me needed to shut down. I kept thinking, These people are not doing this to me. This cannot be. I don't think I was naive. Rather, it was more like denial. I refused to believe that people existed out there who did things like that, who would take Bullseye and Blarney and kill them. How could they do that? But there were just too damned many bad things happening, and I had to start believing. It was an awful realization.

That same day, my best friend's new kitten died suddenly, too.

As I ended the summer, I looked forward to the close of this long and grizzly saga. It could not last forever, and I looked forward to its resolution. And it was coming. Bill Clinton would give his deposition in mid-August, which would open the final chapter in the drama. Ken Starr would release his report in September. Everything was moving toward a conclusion. I eagerly awaited its arrival.

-- Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton, by Kathleen Willey

Similarly, there are reasons to be at least unsure about Paula Jones’s claim that Clinton exposed himself to her and demanded oral sex. Jones was championed by people engaged in what Ann Coulter once proudly called “a small, intricately knit right-wing conspiracy” to bring down the president. She described “distinguishing characteristics” of Clinton’s penis that turned out to be inaccurate. Her sister insisted to Sidney Blumenthal, then a New Yorker writer, that she was lying. Should feminists have backed her anyway? I’m still not sure, but the evidence was less definitive than that against Harvey Weinstein, Trump or Moore.

Of the Clinton accusers, the one who haunts me is Broaddrick. The story she tells about Clinton recalls those we’ve heard about Weinstein. She claimed they had plans to meet in a hotel coffee shop, but at the last minute he asked to come up to her hotel room instead, where he raped her. Five witnesses said she confided in them about the assault right after it happened. It’s true that she denied the rape in an affidavit to Paula Jones’s lawyers, before changing her story when talking to federal investigators. But her explanation, that she didn’t want to go public but couldn’t lie to the F.B.I., makes sense. Put simply, I believe her.

What to do with that belief? Contemplating this history is excruciating in part because of the way it has been weaponized against Hillary Clinton. Broaddrick sees her as complicit, interpreting something Hillary once said to her at a political event — “I want you to know that we appreciate everything you do for Bill” — as a veiled threat instead of a rote greeting. This seems wildly unlikely; Broaddrick was decades away from going public, and most reporting about the Clinton marriage shows Bill going to great lengths to hide his betrayals. Nevertheless, one of the sick ironies of the 2016 campaign was that it was Hillary who had to pay the political price for Bill’s misdeeds, as they were trotted out to deflect attention from Trump’s well-documented transgressions.

And now they’re being trotted out again. It’s fair to conclude that because of Broaddrick’s allegations, Bill Clinton no longer has a place in decent society. But we should remember that it’s not simply partisan tribalism that led liberals to doubt her. Discerning what might be true in a blizzard of lies isn’t easy, and the people who spread those lies don’t get to claim the moral high ground. We should err on the side of believing women, but sometimes, that belief will be used against us.

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Bill Clinton should have resigned: What he did to Monica Lewinsky was wrong, and he should have paid the price.
Updated by Matthew Yglesias @[email protected]
Vox
Nov 15, 2017, 9:15am EST

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Win McNamee/Getty Images

Many years ago, when I was a high school student making my first visit to Washington for a two-week summer camp for weird politics dorks, the dominant news story was then-President Bill Clinton’s August 17, 1998, admission that despite earlier denials, he “did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate.”

“In fact,” Clinton conceded, “it was wrong,” and it “constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.”

In the days before the admission, there was considerable conviction in the chattering classes that the allegations, if true, would end up leading to Clinton’s resignation. That proved to be incorrect. Clinton was not shamed into resigning, and senior leaders of the Democratic Party did not pressure him into resigning.

At the time I, like most Americans, was glad to see Clinton prevail and regarded the whole sordid matter as primarily the fault of congressional Republicans’ excessive scandal-mongering. Now, looking back after the election of Donald Trump, the revelations of massive sexual harassment scandals at Fox News, the stories about Harvey Weinstein and others in the entertainment industry, and the stories about Roy Moore’s pursuit of sexual relationships with teenagers, I think we got it wrong. We argued about perjury and adultery and the meaning of the word “is.” Republicans prosecuted a bad case against a president they’d been investigating for years.

What we should have talked about was men abusing their social and economic power over younger and less powerful women.

The United States, and perhaps the broader English-speaking world, is currently undergoing a much-needed accountability moment in which each wave of stories emboldens more people to come forward and more institutions to rethink their practices. Looking back, the 1998 revelation that the president of the United States carried on an affair with an intern could have been that moment.

It was far from the most egregious case of workplace sexual misconduct in American history. But it was unusually high-profile, the facts were not in dispute, the perpetrator had a lot of nominal feminist ideological commitments, and political leaders who shared those commitments had the power to force him from office. Had he resigned in shame, we all might have made a collective cultural and political decision that a person caught leveraging power over women in inappropriate ways ought to be fired. Instead, we lost nearly two decades.

We didn’t even have the right argument

In the midst of the very same public statement in which he confessed the error, Clinton also mounted the defense that would see him through to victory — portraying the issue as fundamentally a private family matter rather than a topic of urgent public concern.

"I intend to reclaim my family life for my family," he said. "It's nobody's business but ours. Even presidents have private lives. It is time to stop the pursuit of personal destruction and the prying into private lives and get on with our national life.”

To this line of argument, Republicans offered what was fundamentally the wrong countercharge. They argued that in the effort to spare himself from the personal and marital embarrassment entailed by having the affair exposed, Clinton committed perjury when testifying about the matter in a deposition related to Paula Jones’s lawsuit against him.

What they should have argued was something simpler: A president who uses the power of the Oval Office to seduce a 20-something subordinate is morally bankrupt and contributing, in a meaningful way, to a serious social problem that disadvantages millions of women throughout their lives.

But by and large, they didn’t. So Clinton countered with the now-famous defense: “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Ultimately, most Americans embraced the larger argument that perjury in a civil lawsuit unrelated to the president’s official duties did not constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.

But looking back through today’s lens, this whole argument was miscast. The wrongdoing at issue was never just a private matter for the Clinton family; it was a high-profile exemplar of a widespread social problem: men’s abuse of workplace power for sexual gain. It was and is a striking example of a genre of misconduct that society has a strong interest in stamping out. That alone should have been enough to have pressured Clinton out of office.

The affair itself was seriously wrong

In Clinton’s defense, of course, the wrongdoing at hand was different in degree from some of the more recent cases in the news.

-- Their Lives: The Women Targeted By the Clinton Machine, by Candice E. Jackson

-- Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton, by Kathleen Willey

-- Passion and Betrayal, by Gennifer Flowers with Jacquelyn Dapper

-- Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America, by Roger Morris

-- The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

-- Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA: How the Presidency was Co-opted by the CIA, by Terry Reed & John Cummings

-- Arkansas Connections, by Sam Smith

In her 2014 Vanity Fair article looking back on the scandal, Lewinsky wrote, “I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.”

As Clinton himself said, it was “not appropriate,” “wrong,” and a “critical lapse in judgment” — phrases that could easily have appeared in the introduction to a resignation message. Alternatively, one could easily imagine Democrats’ then-leaders in Congress Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle — joined perhaps by prominent Cabinet members such as Madeleine Albright and Janet Reno — repeating them back to Clinton in an Oval Office meeting the next day urging him to resign.

Instead, Democrats embraced the narrative that the wrongdoing, though real, was ultimately not serious — or at a minimum, not a matter of public concern.

This was a mistake. Clinton admitted he was wrong but stayed tellingly cagey as to what exactly was wrong about it, before implicitly sliding to the stance that the problem was marital infidelity. Marriages, of course, really are private and, as they say, complicated. By the broader issue of men in general abusing positions of power to obtain sexual gratification is most certainly not a trivial issue or a private matter. If word had gotten back to the White House of an unmarried Cabinet secretary having a clandestine affair with one of his interns, the administration might have taken action or (perhaps more likely) might have tried to cover it up. But they certainly wouldn’t have played dumb and pretended not to see that there was a problem.

“My boss took advantage of me,” Lewinsky writes in the same article, a piece in which she correctly argues that the ensuring debate ended up entirely slighting highly relevant issues including “the balance of power and gender inequality in politics and media.”

Had Clinton resigned in disgrace under pressure from his own party, that would have sent a strong, and useful, chilling signal to powerful men throughout the country.

Instead, the ultimate disposition of the case — impunity for the man who did something wrong, embarrassment and disgrace for the woman who didn’t — only served to confirm women’s worst fears about coming forward.

Democrats had a good alternative to Clinton

Politics ain’t beanbag, and oftentimes political actors have very good reason to stand by problematic actors. If New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is convicted of the corruption charges for which he’s currently on trial (the jury is deliberating as I write), Republicans will argue that he ought to resign his seat. Democrats will strategically resist this, knowing that if Menendez steps down today, the vacancy will be filled by Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, while if he hangs on until mid-January, the state’s Democratic governor-elect, Phil Murphy, will fill it.

But in the case of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, there were no real policy stakes. Had Clinton left office, Al Gore would have become president and pursued essentially the same policy.

It’s not a coincidence that when The West Wing did its fictionalized version of the Clinton impeachment drama, it went out of its way to establish Vice President Hoynes as dislikable and ideologically unreliable (“the guy practically has corporate sponsorship,” Josh Lyman quips at one point before dismissing him as the “Tostitos vice president”), in order to make Bartlett’s effort to cling to office seem sensible and honorable.

Reality provided no such convenient plot contrivance. Gore was a centrist DLC Democrat just like Clinton, one who could easily have stepped into his shoes.

Had Gore become president, perhaps he would have run and won as an incumbent. Or perhaps, as in the real world, he would have lost. Either way, to admit that the Republicans had uncovered something genuinely scandalous would not have entailed making any crucial ideological or policy concessions. It would, instead, have required Democrats to look past knee-jerk partisanship. And, more importantly, it would have required them to acknowledge that what Clinton did was seriously wrong.

The time is right for a reevaluation

Over the past 18 months, the combination of an excellent profile by Katie J.M. Baker and a cynical stunt by the Trump campaign has prompted a reconsideration of Juanita Broaddrick’s allegation that Bill Clinton raped her in 1978.

This is an important conversation to have, due to both the serious nature of the charges and their interplay with the commonplace progressive idea that we should “believe women” when they come forward with allegations of sexual assault.

Hillary Clinton
@HillaryClinton
Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported. http://hrc.io/SexualAssault
6:09 PM - Nov 22, 2015
Campus sexual assault - The Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton
hillaryclinton.com

The Lewinsky case, however, is important precisely because the facts are not in dispute. Cases that involve unprovable, years-old allegations of assault pose an inherently difficult problem for almost any institution. But what’s striking about the charges leveled in recent months against Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., Leon Wieseltier, and so many others is the extent to which misconduct was an “open secret” in the relevant communities.

They kept getting away with it not because nobody knew, but because the people who knew treated it just how the American public treated Clinton’s abusive behavior — as something that was maybe wrong but fundamentally unimportant compared to an important man’s work.

In Clinton’s case, of course, part of the endgame is that a few months after his acquittal on impeachment charges, his wife launched her first Senate campaign. Once Hillary Clinton threw her hat into the ring, she immediately became America’s presumptive first woman president, creating a kind of reputational vortex that shielded her husband’s behavior from scrutiny. Attacking Bill was, by extension, an attack on Hillary — an attack that most people in leading positions in American progressive politics had no desire to make.

“She is the war on women, as far as I’m concerned, because with every woman that she’s found out about—and she made it a point to find out who every woman had been that’s crossed his path over the years—she’s orchestrated a terror campaign against every one of these women, including me,” said Willey.

One of those women was Juanita Broaddrick, who says Hillary Clinton threatened her in person two weeks after she claimed Bill Clinton raped her.

Hillary’s aggressive attitude was not limited to those who accused her husband of sexual misconduct: other men received the benefit of the doubt from Hillary when she needed their support politically. When former Sen. Bob Packwood was accused of sexual harassment, Clinton told her friend Blair that she was “tired of all those whiney [whiny] women,” and that she needed Packwood on health care.

Hillary has also suggested that Bill’s problems with women are the fault of a woman: his mother.

Clinton attempted to explain to Lucinda Franks that Bill’s infidelity is rooted in his abused childhood, stating during an interview that he was abused and that “when a mother does what she does, it affects you forever.”

-- Hillary Clinton’s Long History of Targeting Women, by Brent Scher

But now that Hillary is out of electoral politics and has emerged as a bigger draw and more potent political force than her husband, there’s no excuse for Democrats not to look back on these events with more objectivity. Fifty-something leaders of organizations shouldn’t be carrying on affairs with interns who work for them regardless of whether the affair is in some sense consensual.

We can’t change the past, but we should be clear about it

Building a firm line around that kind of activity would give any organization a stronger, healthier culture. Our expectations for the conduct of the president of the United States should be high, and we should treat men’s abuse of authority over younger female subordinates for sexual purposes as a serious, endemic social problem, not a private marital issue between the boss and his wife.

My guess is that in the years to come, most left-of-center people born in the 1980s will say that if they’d been old enough to have a view on the matter back in 1998, they would have favored pressuring Clinton to resign. I hope that is the case, at least. Most young Democrats backed Bernie Sanders over Clinton in 2016 and are accustomed as a result to the idea of an emotionally and intellectually hostile attitude toward “the Clintons.”

Unfortunately for me, I’m a little too old to get away with claiming to have had no opinion on this at the time. My version of a sophisticated high schooler’s take on the matter was that the American media should get over its bourgeois morality hang-ups and be more like the French, where François Mitterrand’s wife and his longtime mistress grieved together at his funeral.

As a married 30-something father, I’ve come around to a less “worldly” view of infidelity. As a co-founder of Vox, I’d never in a million years want us to be the kind of place where men in senior roles can get away with the kind of misconduct that we’ve seen is all too common in our industry and in so many others.

Most of all, as a citizen I’ve come to see that the scandal was never about infidelity or perjury — or at least, it shouldn’t have been. It was about power in the workplace and its use. The policy case that Democrats needed Clinton in office was weak, and the message that driving him from office would have sent would have been profound and welcome. That this view was not commonplace at the time shows that we did not, as a society, give the most important part of the story the weight it deserved.

As the current accountability moment grows, we ought to recognize and admit that we had a chance to do this almost 20 years ago — potentially sparing countless young women a wide range of unpleasant and discriminatory experiences, or at a minimum reducing their frequency and severity. And we blew it.

[admin]

Transcript of Interview With Kathleen Willey [Ed Bradley, CBS 60 Minutes]
National Politics
The New York Times
March 16, 1998

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Following is an interview conducted with Kathleen Willey by correspondent Ed Bradley on the CBS News program "60 Minutes" and broadcast on March 15, as transcribed by the Federal Documents Clearing House:

BRADLEY: The significance of Kathleen Willey's account of her incident with President Clinton is that -- if true -- it is more than just a case of inappropriate behavior.

It leaves the president wide open to charges of perjury -- an impeachable offense -- that he lied repeatedly when he testified under oath in the Paul Jones case about his encounter with Kathleen Willey.

In addition, her story could also shed light on another issue being looked at by the special prosecutor: Did the White House seek to obstruct justice -- which is also a crime -- by pressuring Willey and others to alter her story?

Kathleen Willey is 51-years-old and lives in Richmond, Virginia. A loyal democrat, she campaigned hard for Bill Clinton in 1992.

Along with her late husband Ed, she volunteered her time and contributed thousands of dollars to Mr. Clinton's bid for the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

In your mind back then, what stood out for you about Bill Clinton?

WILLEY: His sincerity.

I -- liked the fact that -- he was my age -- our age. I -- liked the things that he believed in. He was a contemporary of mine.

BRADLEY: How -- would you characterize at that time, your relationship with the president?

WILLEY: We were friends.

We had had the occasion to speak with him on election night. He had called us right after the election -- called me, just to thank us for our help. I would say good friends.

BRADLEY: Once Bill Clinton became president, Kathleen Willey continued her volunteer work at the White House, in the correspondence office, where she helped respond to the huge volume of mail coming in for the new president.

In this job, did you have much interaction with the president?

WILLEY: At that time? No.

BRADLEY: She says all that changed right after she saw the president, one day, on the White House lawn, and then got a call from the president's scheduler, Nancy Hernreich.

WILLEY: I saw the president at the White House Easter Egg roll, where I was helping out, and he asked where I was.

And, when I got home that afternoon, there was a phone call from -- from Nancy Hernreich, asking me if I would come up and meet with her, that the president had an interest in my working someplace else other than correspondence.

BRADLEY: Kathleen Willey was given a job in the White House social office, located in the East wing, near the Oval office.

Did you see the president more often in this job than you did in the -- the other one?

WILLEY: Yes.

I was in the East Wing at that point, yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRADLEY: But Kathleen Willey's life was about to fall apart. Her husband, a lawyer, was in deep trouble.

He was under investigation for embezzling money from his clients, and the Willey family's finances were in a shambles. Kathleen Willey told her husband she needed to do something about it, and that she was going to see her "good friend," President Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLEY: And I told him that I was going to go to Washington and ask the president for a full-time paying job.

BRADLEY: And -- and you felt comfortable doing that?

WILLEY: Yeah.

Absolutely.

BRADLEY: What you are about to hear is what Kathleen Willey says happened behind closed doors that day, between her and the President of the United States, inside the Oval office.

So, let me ask you to take me through it, step by step, what happened when you went into the Oval office?

WILLEY: I went in, and the president was at his desk, and I sat down in the chair across from him, and I obviously looked very distraught.

He asked me what was wrong. I told him I had a really serious problem and that I needed his help. And, he said, "Would you like a cup of coffee?" And I said, "Yes, I would."

So he -- he walked to another -- a door on the other side of the Oval office, which led into a hallway, into his small galley kitchen, and there was a -- a steward in there, I remember.

And the president took a -- a coffee cup down out of the pantry, and -- a Starbucks coffee cup, I remember -- and, he poured me a cup of coffee, poured himself a cup of coffee, and we started walking back down the hall towards the Oval office and he said, "why don't you come in here into my study? We can talk better in here."

And, I stood and leaned -- I was leaning against the door jam. He was in the office.

We were standing facing each other, and I told him what had happened. I -- I didn't give him all the details. I just told him that my husband was in financial difficulty, and that things were at a crisis point, and that my volunteer -- volunteer days were over, that -- that I needed a -- a regular paying job, and could he help me?

BRADLEY: And, did he seem sympathetic? Did he say...

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: ... he could help you?

WILLEY: Yeah, well, he did seem sympathetic.

He -- he -- he was listening. I -- I had the feeling that he was somehow distracted when I was talking to him, but -- but he was not really -- really listening, but I know that he did. I know he knows how distraught I was and how upset I was, because I -- I was -- I was very worried. I was worried about my husband, and -- and -- and what as going to happen.

BRADLEY: And what happened next?

WILLEY: Well, he -- he said he would do everything that he could to -- to -- to help, and I turned around and -- out of the -- out of the office, and he followed me to -- I thought he was going to open the door to the -- to the Oval office, and right as we got to the door, he stopped and he gave me a big hug and said that he was very sorry that this was happening to me.

And -- I had -- had no problem with that, because when I saw -- every time I saw him, he would hug me.

He use -- just does that, is like that.

And, I remember I had -- still had this coffee cup in my hand, and it was kind of in between us, and I didn't want it to spill on him or me, and -- and it just was this -- it was just very strange. And he -- he took the coffee cup out of my hand and he put it on a bookshelf, and -- and -- he -- this hug lasted a little longer than I thought necessary, but at the same time -- I mean, I was not concerned about it. And then he -- then he -- and then he kissed me on -- on my mouth, and -- and pulled me closer to him. And -- I remember thinking -- I just remember thinking, "what in the world is he doing?" I -- it -- I just thought, "what is he doing?" And, I -- I pushed back away from him, and -- he -- he -- he -- he -- he's a big man.

And he -- he had his arms -- they were tight around me, and he -- he -- he touched me.

BRADLEY: Touched you how?

WILLEY: Well, he -- he -- he touched my breasts with his hand, and, I -- I -- I -- I was -- I -- I was just startled.

I was -- I was just...

BRADLEY: This -- this wasn't an accidental grazing touch?

WILLEY: No.

And -- then he -- whispered -- he -- he -- said in -- in my ears that, "I -- I've wanted to do this ever since I laid eyes on you." And -- I remember -- I remember saying to him, "aren't you afraid that somebody's going to walk in here?" The -- and, he said -- he said, "no. No, I'm -- no, I'm not." And -- and then -- and -- and then he took my hand, and he -- and he put it on him. And, that's when I pushed away from him and -- and decided it was time to get out of there.

BRADLEY: When you say he took your hand...

WILLEY: Right.

BRADLEY: ... and put it on him...

WILLEY: Hum-hum.

BRADLEY: Where on him?

WILLEY: On -- on his genitals.

BRADLEY: Was he a -- aroused?

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: He was.

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: What were you thinking?

WILLEY: Well, I -- I was -- there was -- I -- there were all kinds of things going through my mind.

I -- I think as -- when I think back on it, it was kind of like I was watching it in slow motion, and -- and thinking surely this is not happening. And, at the same time, I -- I wanted to -- I thought, "well, maybe I ought to just give him a good slap across the face." And then I thought, "well, I don't think you can slap the President of the United States like that." And -- and I just decided it was just time to get out of there.

BRADLEY: Did you say anything to him, or was there anything about your behavior that invited an advance?

WILLEY: I -- I -- I have gone over this so many times, so very many times, because I think that your natural instinct is to wonder, "Did I bring this on? Did I send a -- a -- the wrong signal?" The only signals that I was sending that day, was that I was very upset, very distraught, and I needed to help my husband.

BRADLEY: Did you feel intimidated?

WILLEY: I didn't feel intimidated.

I just felt overpowered.

BRADLEY: Did you ever say, "stop.

No. Get away from me?"

WILLEY: I just -- I -- I pushed him away.

I pushed him away, and -- and I said, "I think I -- I'd better go."

BRADLEY: And what did he say?

WILLEY: He -- he -- he kept looking at his watch, 'cause he told me that he had a meeting, and he said -- he said -- that he could -- he said they could wait.

And I said, "Well..." I said, "well, I'm leaving."

BRADLEY: When you walked out of there, what -- what were you thinking?

WILLEY: I just could not believe that that had happened in that office.

I -- I just could not believe -- the recklessness of that act.

BRADLEY: Recklessness? What do you mean "recklessness"?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRADLEY: The FBI is now investigating charges that this man -- Nathan Landow, a major Democratic Party contributor with close ties to the White House, tried to pressure Kathleen Willey to keep her story secret.

60 Minutes has learned that this past week, the grand jury heard testimony from a key witness who said Landow had done just that. But his story is that he hardly knew her.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Nate Landow -- you -- you know him?

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: Would it be fair to say that this is someone you'd seen more than a couple of times? This wasn't just a casual acquaintance?

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: You had discussed, with Nate Landow, the incident that took place in the White -- in the White House...

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: ...in the Oval office?

WILLEY: Extensively, yes.

BRADLEY: It's been reported that he has brought pressure on you, not to talk about it publicly.

Is that true?

WILLEY: I can't say at this point, because it's a -- all that's going on.

BRADLEY: All of these ongoing investigations.

WILLEY: Investigations, yes.

BRADLEY: Willey's lawyer advised her not to say any more about Landow; that's probably because Willey is cooperating with Kenneth Starr, who may not want to reveal his hand before Landow is called to testify before the grand jury.

Landow declined our request for an interview and, as we said, he says they hardly knew each other, and that he'd never had a detailed conversation with her about any of her relationships.

While Kathleen Willey did not want to talk about Nathan Landow, she did tell us other people close to the president have tried to influence her.

Have you ever been pressured?

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: How? Tell me about it.

WILLEY: I felt pressured by Mr. Bennett.

BRADLEY: The president's attorney?

WILLEY: Yes.

We -- we were together at some point before our court hearing, and he mentioned that he had just left -- he had just been at the White House, and -- and the -- the president asked for me and told him just -- that he just thought the world of me. And, he said, "now, this -- this was not sexual harassment, was it?" And, I didn't answer him.

And he said, "well -- and it wasn't -- not -- it wasn't -- it -- it wasn't unwelcome, was it?" And I said to him, "it was unwelcome and unexpected."

BRADLEY: Did you feel intimidated by Bennett?

WILLEY: I -- I felt pressured.

Especially when he threw in the -- the business about, "well, the president just feel -- thinks the world of you," and it -- it -- I found that a little laughable, though.

BRADLEY: Why?

WILLEY: Well, because if the president thought the world of me, why did he do what he did?

BRADLEY: Willey says she did not find it laughable when, she says, Bennett suggested she find herself a criminal lawyer.

WILLEY: It -- the insinuation to me was that Mr. Bennett was implying that I was going to face some kind of a criminal charge for perjury or -- or something else, and that I would need an inside dilute -- an inside Washington criminal lawyer, and -- and I -- I didn't, and I don't.

BRADLEY: Bob Bennett says that isn't so and insists that, if Willey says that, she is lying.

For her part, Willey says if there are any perjury charges to be filed, they should be directed at the president.

He said under oath, that the meeting stands out in his mind because you were so distraught, you were so...

WILLEY: Right.

BRADLEY: ... emotional that day, and that he may have kissed you on the forehead in a consoling way...

WILLEY: Right, right.

BRADLEY: ... but it was not a sexual advance.

If the president said that under oath, is he lying.

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: He is lying?

WILLEY: Yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRADLEY: When the story first emerged last summer, the president's lawyer, Bob Bennett, said that Clinton had no specific recollection of ever meeting Willey in the Oval office. The president's lawyer also said then, that it was preposterous to suggest that Clinton made a sexual advance toward Willey.

But in a sworn deposition two months ago, the president contradicted his own lawyer, saying he remembered, "very well," an Oval office meeting with Kathleen Willey.

Still, Clinton denied emphatically any sexual encounter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

What do you make of the conflict? I mean, there's a clear contradiction there.

WILLEY: I know.

BRADLEY: What do you make of that?

WILLEY: I -- I think that he probably realized that, completely disavowing any meeting was -- was just ludicrous.

When I came out of the Oval office, the first person I saw was -- was Lloyd Benson, and it has since been reported that, yes, indeed, he was there for a 3:00 meeting. I mean, these things can be documented.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRADLEY: Kathleen Willey says looking back on it now, the incident that day in 1993, was not the first time the President had shown an unusual interest in her.

She remembers a day in 1992, when then Governor Clinton made a campaign trip to Richmond, Virginia, where Willey was volunteering to help get him elected.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLEY: I was at the airport to welcome him.

And, while I was out there meeting him, he -- he spotted me, and -- and we waved because we had -- I had seen him before at previous fund-raisers, and he sent someone over to get my telephone number.

BRADLEY: Did he ever use it?

WILLEY: He called me when -- when he got to Williamsburg, and when I got home he called me, and he asked me if -- if I could -- he -- he had lost his voice, and he was worried about that for the -- for the next -- for the -- the debate the next evening.

And he asked me how far I was from Williamsburg, and I told him. And I, kiddingly, told him -- I just jokingly said, "it sounds like you need some chicken soup." And, he said, "well, would you bring me some?" And I said -- I -- I don't really think I answered him because I thought he was just... being facetious.

And then he told me that he was surrounded by Secret Service agents, and that he would -- he would try to get rid of them, and -- if I would come down. And he said he would call me back later, which he did. And I declined to go.

BRADLEY: You declined to go because...

WILLEY: Because my instincts told me he wasn't interested in chicken soup.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRADLEY: In an effort to raise questions about Kathleen Willey's credibility, the president's lawyers obtained a sworn affidavit from a woman who used to be one of Willey's closest friends.

Her name is Julie Steele. And she initially confirmed Kathleen Willey's story, saying that Willey went to Julie Steele's house on the night of the incident, with president Clinton; and then Willey told her what had happened. But in that affidavit, Steele now maintains that she lied at Willey's request.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Why would she say that?

WILLEY: My own personal belief is that she was pressured.

I think that in -- I think that the White House wanted to try to discredit me, and they found a pawn in her.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRADLEY: The affidavit Steele signed at the request of the White House lawyers said Steele had, quote, "never heard any allegations of improper conduct by President Clinton" until Willey asked her to lie, but Steele told Newsweek magazine that Willey had told her of an incident between Willey and the president.

And there's yet another woman in this story -- Linda Tripp; that's the same Linda Tripp, who secretly tape-recorded Monica Lewinsky, talking about an affair Lewinsky claimed she had with President Clinton.

What does Linda Tripp have to do with Kathleen Willey?

They worked together at the White House, and Tripp was there when Willey emerged from the president's office that day, in 1993.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Did you say anything to her?

WILLEY: I remember saying to her -- I -- saying, "you are just not going to believe this." And we went outside, and I told her what had happened.

BRADLEY: You say that you were angry, you were upset, you were distraught.

Yet, she says you were joyful.

WILLEY: I -- I think probably -- in defense of her -- I think -- when I am in -- if I get into a very tense -- tense situation, I try to -- I fall back on my sense of humor.

I think when I said, "you are not going to believe this one," maybe she took that as joyful.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRADLEY: A few months later, Kathleen Willey, shown here in a White House photograph with the president, had received a part-time paying job, and Linda Tripp was moved from the White House to the Pentagon.

According to Willey, Linda Tripp was furious.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLEY: She said, "Don't you think for one minute that I don't know what's going on around here." And I said, "I don't know what you mean." And -- and she said, "I know you're here because the president wants you here.

And -- and they want me out of here because I -- because I know what happened." And I said, "that's just absolutely, positively, not true."

She was very angry.

Very upset. Very bitter. And she -- she ended the conversation by saying, "I'm going to get you, and every place -- everyone else in this place, before this is all over."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRADLEY: Linda Tripp, through her lawyer, denies saying she was out to get anyone.

But somehow Willey's name came to the attention of Paula Jones's lawyers, and Willey -- who says she intended to take her story to the grave -- was ordered by a judge to give her deposition.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

You -- you were a reluctant witness.

You didn't want your story to go public?

WILLEY: No.

BRADLEY: Why not?

WILLEY: I just knew that -- it was just a bad story.

It was just horrible behavior on the part of the president. And I did not think it was my place to make it public knowledge.

BRADLEY: You didn't walk away.

You didn't lodge a complaint anywhere.

WILLEY: No.

That's right. That was the choice I made.

BRADLEY: Because?

WILLEY: That was the -- the choice that I thought was the best one.

I -- I was -- I was embarrassed for the president's behavior. And, I saw no benefit whatsoever, in filing a compliant, or -- or -- or -- I mean, who do you file a complaint with anyway, when it's the president? Where do you go?

BRADLEY: Then, why did she decide now to go public?

WILLEY: I just think that it's time to tell this story.

I think that there -- too many lies are being told. Too many lives are being ruined. And, I -- I think it's time for the truth to come out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[admin]

Game Change Author Suspended From MSNBC Over Sexual Assault Allegations
by Ben Mathis-Lilley
October 26, 2017 11:44 AM

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Mark Halperin in Washington on May 3.
Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Showtime

MSNBC has suspended best-selling author and political pundit Mark Halperin after a CNN report in which five women accused him of sexual harassment and assault:

"We find the story and the allegations very troubling. Mark Halperin is leaving his role as a contributor until the questions around his past conduct are fully understood."

Oliver Darcy
@oliverdarcy
Replying to @oliverdarcy
NEW: Halperin leaving his role as NBC analyst, per network statement
4:17 AM - Oct 26, 2017

The allegations in CNN’s piece describe a repeated pattern of inappropriate and aggressive sexual behavior in workplace settings:

The stories of harassment shared with CNN range in nature from propositioning employees for sex to kissing and grabbing one’s breasts against her will. Three of the women who spoke to CNN described Halperin as, without consent, pressing an erection against their bodies while he was clothed. Halperin denies grabbing a woman’s breasts and pressing his genitals against the three women.

Emily Miller of One America News Network said on Twitter after CNN’s piece was published that she was not one of CNN’s sources but that Halperin also “attacked” her when she worked with him at ABC.

Earlier this week, longtime New Republic editor and writer Leon Wieseltier admitted to “offenses against some of my colleagues in the past” after the backers of a new magazine he was set to edit canceled the project after learning about sexual harassment allegations against him. News also broke that the United Talent Agency has dropped Bill O’Reilly as a client after a report that he’d paid a staggering $32 million to settle one of several known sexual harassment suits against him. New accusations also continue to emerge against Harvey Weinstein, the powerful movie producer who was fired from his own company earlier this month after a New York Times report detailed numerous allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him. Donald Trump remains president.

[admin]

Top NPR News Executive Mike Oreskes Resigns Amid Allegations Of Sexual Harassment
Heard on All Things Considered
November 1, 20174:53 PM ET

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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with NPR CEO Jarl Mohn about how NPR has handled allegations of sexual harassment against NPR's Senior Vice President for News Michael Oreskes, who resigned Wednesday.

Transcript:

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

And we are reporting on news from inside the NPR newsroom today. Our top editor, NPR Senior Vice President of News Mike Oreskes, has resigned following accusations of sexual harassment. Three women have filed complaints, one a current NPR reporter, the other two alleging harassment from two decades ago when Oreskes was at The New York Times. [EDITOR'S NOTE on Nov. 8: Since this interview was broadcast, NPR CEO Jarl Mohn has revealed that another woman who works at NPR filed a complaint against Michael Oreskes in the fall of 2015, and that Oreskes was disciplined “for both incidents.” There is more about that revelation here .] Mike put out a statement this afternoon saying, quote, "I am deeply sorry to the people I hurt. My behavior was wrong and inexcusable, and I accept full responsibility," end quote. NPR CEO Jarl Mohn says he asked for Oreskes' resignation this morning, and Jarl joins me now in the studio. Hi there.

JARL MOHN: Hi, Mary Louise.

KELLY: When did you first learn of an allegation of sexual harassment in connection with Mike Oreskes?

MOHN: Well, the first situation was the one you just referred to, was the - I guess in the fall of '15.

KELLY: So just to be clear, nothing had come to your attention, no allegations at the point when you hired him in the spring of 2015.

MOHN: None, none.

KELLY: You knew nothing.

MOHN: None.

KELLY: There have been a lot of questions about the timeline of when NPR knew what. So what I'd love to do is start there and just tick through my understanding of events as they unfolded, and please jump in and stop me if there's something...

MOHN: Sure.

KELLY: ...That doesn't square with events as you understand them. So in 2015, NPR staffer Rebecca Hersher alleged that Oreskes made her deeply uncomfortable at a three-hour dinner and that he asked personal and invasive questions. She complained, and Oreskes was reprimanded that same year, 2015, correct?

MOHN: That's correct.

KELLY: A year later, October 2016, NPR learned about a woman complaining of harassment by Oreskes at The New York Times nearly two decades ago. This complaint involved physical contact. She says he kissed her. He forced his tongue into her mouth, correct?

MOHN: Well, that's what we heard. And that would have been, I think, in the fall of '16, yes.

KELLY: Fall of '16. And then last month, a second woman complained of Oreskes' behavior during his time at The New York Times, a similar complaint that he kissed her...

MOHN: Yes.

KELLY: ...Without being - having been invited to do so.

MOHN: Correct.

KELLY: If that is the sequence, if you knew of these multiple allegations, did it cross your mind that leaving Mike in his job might put other women, might put our colleagues at risk?

MOHN: Yes. Well, let's look at those three examples that you gave, Mary Louise. The first, which occurred in the fall of '15 - that was an internal situation that happened here. It was a terrible situation. I condemn his actions. They were unacceptable. They're deplorable. We investigated. We did it immediately. We involved our HR department. We involved our general counsel. We sat with Mike. We confronted him about that situation and put him on notice that this could not occur. My understanding is - and again, it was reported here. David Folkenflik reported yesterday that that employee felt that we satisfactorily addressed that issue. And there's a whole range - I mean, there's a whole range of what is unacceptable behavior. This was...

KELLY: But that issue you knew about...

MOHN: Yes.

KELLY: ...When a year later a second allegation came in.

MOHN: You're referring to The New York Times, yes.

KELLY: The New York Times - from his tenure at The New York Times.

MOHN: Again, the important distinction here is, first, that did not happen at NPR. It was not an NPR employee. It was at The New York Times, and it occurred 20 years ago. Had that happened at NPR, we would have had a very different reaction to it. It happened 20 years earlier. One of the things we wanted to do as a result of that is make sure that that did not happen here. And I will tell you up to this moment sitting here and talking with you, Mary Louise, I'm not aware of anything that he's done or that happened that bears any resemblance to those issues that occurred 20 years ago while he was at The New York Times.

KELLY: Our media correspondent David Folkenflik has talked to five more women since last night on top of the three cases that we've already discussed, five more women alleging inappropriate conduct by Oreskes over a period of years. Has any other claim reached your office?

MOHN: I would say as a result of the published reports within the past 24 hours, we have heard of one other that has surfaced. I would say when the second New York Times story from...

KELLY: The second woman...

MOHN: Yes.

KELLY: ...Who dealt with Oreskes in his time at The Times.

MOHN: We felt very strongly that we needed to - and there had been rumors circulating around the building here about his behavior - rumors and gossip. We can't act on that. We have to act on facts. I put out an email. I put out a memo, a statement asking for anyone that has experienced or witnessed any of this behavior to please come forward. We laid out a whole array of ways that they could contact us. There must have been seven or eight ways in. Over that two-week period of time, we got no complaints. No one stepped forward. Unfortunately, it took the published reports to have something surface.

KELLY: But when you say it took published reports for this to surface, we're a news organization.

MOHN: Yeah.

KELLY: There's a few hundred reporters out there. Why are we getting scooped by The Washington Post on this?

MOHN: Why are we - are you - you're talking about The New York Times story? When we, you know...

KELLY: I'm talking about The Washington Post story quoting two New York Times woman. And I'll add to that. I learned that Mike Oreskes had resigned when I checked my phone in the line in the NPR canteen today. And the way I learned about it was via an AP news alert - Associated Press. Why did they know and we didn't?

MOHN: Well, because that's not from us. We did not release it. We had a clear timeline of how we were going to release this information. While we were in our meeting planning how we were going to release that information, the AP got the story. I suspect Mike released his statement to the AP. It was not from us.

KELLY: You said you can't act on rumors and gossip. But were you concerned that these accusations were creating a toxic environment in the newsroom?

MOHN: Absolutely, of course. As bad as...

KELLY: Should that not prompt action then?

MOHN: Well, it did, ultimately. We informally were asking questions. Clearly we didn't do everything we could because it didn't result in the right answer. But to suggest we were not doing anything or we were not acting appropriately is not - or that we were doing nothing is false.

KELLY: Let me push you again then on what did push you to act and put Mike on leave as of last night and then ask for his resignation this morning. The Washington Post published his story. He was put on leave within a couple of hours. Was that because new information came to light, came to you?

MOHN: Yes, yes.

KELLY: But you can't elaborate on what that is.

MOHN: I cannot.

KELLY: A new case, a new allegation?

MOHN: New case.

KELLY: Internal?

MOHN: Yes.

KELLY: Current employee?

MOHN: Yes.

KELLY: May I ask the severity of the allegation?

MOHN: Again, I hate...

KELLY: I know, but you've talked about a range, and there's a big range and it matters.

MOHN: I understand, but I'm going to be lambasted for any specificity here. And again, I want to get to the confidentiality of the complaint. I would say on this - on the range of, you know, Harvey Weinstein being on one extreme and the other internal issue that - the complaint that you referred to earlier...

KELLY: Conversation that made a woman feel uncomfortable.

MOHN: Yes. I would say it was clearly in that range.

KELLY: In the uncomfortable conversation range.

MOHN: Yes, yes.

KELLY: Jarl Mohn, our boss, NPR's CEO, talking about the resignation today of our top editor, Mike Oreskes, following accusations of sexual harassment. Jarl, thank you.

MOHN: Thank you, Mary Louise.

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[admin]

Louis C.K. on Sexual Misconduct Allegations: “These Stories Are True”
by Sam Adams
The-21st-Annual-Webby-Awards--Inside


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C.K. in May.
Bennett Raglin/Getty Images

In response to a New York Times article alleging that Louis C.K. exposed himself to and masturbated in front of several unwilling women, C.K. has issued a statement.

I want to address the stories told to the New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not.

These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.

I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I’m aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position.

I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it.

There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with.

I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work.

The hardest regret to live with is what you’ve done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. I’d be remiss to exclude the hurt that I brought on people who I work with and have worked with and who[se] professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of Better Things, Baskets, One Mississippi and I Love You Daddy. I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. I’ve brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much[,] The Orchard who took a chance on my movie[,] and every other entity that has bet on me through the years.

I’ve brought pain to my family and friends, my children and their mother.

I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen.

Thank you for reading.

[admin]

Barbara Boxer recounts harassment on Capitol Hill: ‘The entire audience started laughing’
by Avery Anapol
11/15/17 03:35 PM EST

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Former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on Wednesday shared her experience with sexual harassment on Capitol Hill, saying it was a "shaming" and "belittling" incident.

Boxer said on MSNBC that when she was a member of the House in the 1980s, she was humiliated by inappropriate comments from her colleagues at a hearing after she presented a bill.

"One of my colleagues said after I spoke, 'I want to associate myself with the comments of the congresswoman from California,’ which is exactly the right thing to say," Boxer said.

"But then he went on and said, 'In fact, I want to associate with the congresswoman from California,' at which point the entire audience started laughing."

The committee chairman added, “I want to associate with her, too," Boxer recalled. She said that she "turned bright red."

Boxer joined a number of current and former lawmakers speaking out this week about their experiences with sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. Several lawmakers introduced a bill Wednesday that would overhaul congressional sexual harassment policies.

“This doesn’t compare to some of the dreadful stories we’re hearing,” Boxer said of her experience, comparing it to stories of physical attacks.

“But it was so humiliating and disempowering, and luckily I’m a strong person.”

[admin]

Bill Clinton is facing NEW accusations of sexual assault by four women while the former president was working with a billionaire playboy and flying on his private jet nicknamed Air F**k One, claims Clinton author
by Ed Klein
DailyMail.com
10:08 EST, 20 November 2017 | UPDATED: 13:25 EST, 20 November 2017

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Bill Clinton is facing accusations of sexual assault from four women, highly placed Democratic Party sources have told author Ed Klein
The women allege the former president assaulted them in the early 2000s, when Clinton was working with playboy billionaire investor Ron Burkle
The unidentified women were employed in low-level positions at the Burkle organization and in their late teens at the time of the alleged assaults
Clinton helped Burkle generate business and flew around the world on Burkle's private jet, which was nicknamed 'Air F**k One'
The 71-year-old politician has been haunted throughout his years in public office by allegations of sexual misconduct
Hillary Clinton allegedly offered to hire private detectives to find dirt on the new accusers, but Clinton's legal team advised against it, sources said

Edward Klein is the former editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine and the author of numerous bestsellers including his fourth book on the Clintons, Guilty as Sin, in 2016. His latest book is All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump was released on October 30, 2017.

Bill Clinton is facing explosive new charges of sexual assault from four women, according to highly placed Democratic Party sources and an official who served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations.

The current accusations against the 71-year-old former president — whose past is littered with charges of sexual misconduct — stem from the period after he left the White House in 2001, say the sources.

Attorneys representing the women, who are coordinating their efforts, have notified Clinton they are preparing to file four separate lawsuits against him.

As part of the ongoing negotiations, the attorneys for the women are asking for substantial payouts in return for their clients' silence.

A member of Clinton's legal team has confirmed the existence of the new allegations.


President Clinton, here with residents at the William Rivera Betancourt Vocational School which was turned into an emergency shelter in Canovanas, Puerto Rico, is facing accusations of sexual assault from four unidentified women, highly placed Democratic Party sources told author Ed Klein


The women alleged the former president assaulted them in the early 2000s, during the time Clinton was working with playboy billionaire investor Ron Burkle (pictured together in 2006)


The unidentified women were employed in low-level positions at the Burkle organization and in their late teens at the time of the alleged assaults. Clinton helped Burkle generate business and flew around the world on Burkle's private jet, which was nicknamed 'Air F**k One' (pictured)

Back in the late 1990s, Clinton paid $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee whose case led to Clinton's impeachment in the House of Representatives and his subsequent acquittal by the Senate in 1999.

The negotiations in the new lawsuits are said to have reached a critical stage.

If they fail, according to sources in Clinton's inner circle, the four women are said to be ready to air their accusations of sexual assault at a press conference, making Clinton the latest — and most famous — figure in a long list of men from Harvey Weinstein to Kevin Spacey who have recently been accused of sexual assault.

The new allegations refer to incidents that took place more than 10 years ago, in the early 2000s, when Clinton was hired by Ron Burkle, the playboy billionaire investor, to work at his Yucaipa companies.

Clinton helped Burkle generate business and flew around the world with a flock of beautiful young women on Burkle's private jet, which was nicknamed 'Air F**k One.'

The four women, who have not yet revealed their identities, were employed in low-level positions at the Burkle organization when they were in their late teens and claim they were sexually assaulted by the former president.


The 71-year-old politician has been followed throughout his years in public office with allegations of sexual misconduct, reaching its peak with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Pictured: Clinton with White House intern Lewinsky in 1998



In the late 1990s, Clinton paid $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit by Paula Jones (left and right), a former Arkansas state employee whose case led to Clinton's impeachment in the House of Representatives and his subsequent acquittal by the Senate in 1999



The new charges are likely to revive the debate over why Democrats defended Clinton and why liberals and feminists ignored credible charges of sexual assault against Clinton from Juanita Broaddrick (left) and Kathleen Willey (right)

There is no evidence that Burkle knew anything about these alleged assaults by Clinton.

Contacted for a comment on the women's allegations, a member of Clinton's legal team said: 'Obviously, I'm aware of [the allegations] but can't talk about them.'

The new charges are likely to revive the debate over why Democrats defended Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and why liberals and feminists ignored credible charges of sexual assault against the 42nd president, not only from Paula Jones, but also from Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and others.

'Bill is distraught at the thought of having to testify and defend himself against sex charges again,' said a Democratic Party official who is familiar with the case.

'He hopes his legal team can somehow stop the women from filing charges and drag him through the mud.'

The source added that Hillary Clinton is furious with her husband for getting entangled in yet another sexual scandal.


Hillary Clinton allegedly offered to hire private detectives to find dirt on the new accusers, but Clinton's legal team advised against it, sources said


'Bill spends a great deal of his time in his penthouse apartment above the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock. Hillary occasionally goes to Little Rock, but she refuses to stay in the apartment because she knows that's his love nest,' a source said

She reportedly offered to hire private detectives to dig up dirt on the women, but Bill Clinton's attorneys persuaded her to not interfere.

'In the past Hillary had a team of detectives that managed to silence a number of women in Little Rock who had complaints about Bill's unwanted sexual advances,' said the source.


Klein's latest book, All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump, was released on October 30, 2017

'But now Hillary admits there's a different atmosphere in our culture about sexual harassment and it's not possible to intimidate women into silence about charges once they make up their mind to speak up.

'Hillary wants to remain in the public eye as a leader of the resistance to Donald Trump and play a major role in politics for years to come, including maybe even running for president again in 2020,' the source continued.

'She's afraid this latest scandal could destroy the Clinton legacy and torpedo her plans.

'The relationship between Bill and Hillary has been more of a business relationship for a number of years, except when it comes to their daughter and grandchildren.

'They haven't lived as man and wife for a number of years, mostly due to Bill's running around with other women.

'It became obvious years ago that even age wasn't going to make Bill settle down and stop chasing women. Hillary has simply ignored it and lived her separate life.

'Bill spends a great deal of his time in his penthouse apartment above the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.

'Hillary occasionally goes to Little Rock, but she refuses to stay in the apartment because she knows that's his love nest.'

[admin]

Harvey Weinstein scandal: New claim alleges sex trafficking
by Erin Jensen
USA TODAY
11:00 a.m. ET Nov. 27, 2017 | Updated 7:46 p.m. ET Nov. 27, 2017

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The Harvey Weinstein scandal continues to unfold.

The Hollywood producer, who stands accused of sexual assault and harassment by dozens of women, also faces a growing number of lawsuits.

The latest updates:

A civil claim of sex trafficking filed in New York

British actress Kadian Noble filed a civil suit on Monday in New York alleging that Harvey Weinstein forced her into sexual acts while abroad in 2014. Even more damning: The suit, obtained by USA TODAY, claims The Weinstein Company violated federal sex trafficking law "by benefiting from, and knowingly facilitating" Weinstein's foreign business travels in which he would "recruit or entice female actors into forced or coerced sexual encounters on the promise of roles in films or entertainment projects."

Noble says she was summoned to the producer's hotel room at Cannes Film Festival in 2014 to talk about a role. He began massaging her shoulders and told her to "relax." According to the complaint, Weinstein called an unnamed Weinstein Company producer, who told the actress that she needed to be “a good girl and do whatever (Weinstein) wished,” and if she did, “they would work” with her further. Weinstein then began groping her, pulled her into a bathroom, and forced her to fondle him.

The suit says Bob Weinstein and The Weinstein Company "knowingly participated in Weinstein's" trips to foreign countries for such purposes.

“I filed under the Federal sex trafficking law because I believe the facts as alleged in the complaint fit squarely within the statute," Jeff Herman, Noble’s lawyer, told USA TODAY in a statement. "The benefit of filing under this Federal law is that it allows us to bring a claim in the United States for an assault that occurred overseas and it has a 10 year statute of limitations.”

Noble and her lawyer will hold a news conference in New York on Tuesday.

Weinstein repeated his denial that anything non-consensual occurred. “Mr. Weinstein denies allegations of non-consensual sex," his representative Holly K. Baird told USA TODAY in a statement. "Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.”

Weinstein resigns from Directors Guild

Facing disciplinary action from the Directors Guild of America, Weinstein has announced that he's resigning from the entertainment guild.

Weinstein confirmed his resignation on Monday and said he has "nothing but the utmost respect for the organization" in a statement sent to USA TODAY by his publicist Holly Baird.

The Directors Guild broke with its policy of not disclosing internal affairs by announcing it had filed disciplinary charges against Weinstein on Oct. 13.

"As directors and team members who solve problems for a living, we are committed to eradicating the scourge of sexual harassment on our industry," said president Thomas Schlamme. "Unless we recognize what has become so acceptable in our culture and how we possibly, even unconsciously, are participants, everything else will be meaningless."

Weinstein has two directorial credits in IMDb: The Gnomes' Great Adventure (1987) and Playing for Keeps (1986).

A civil claim has been lodged in the U.K.

The first civil claim against Weinstein for a series of sexual assaults has been filed in the U.K.

In the claim issued Nov. 23 and obtained by USA TODAY, Weinstein is named as a defendant, along with The Weinstein Company (UK) Limited and The Weinstein Company LLC.

Personal injury lawyer Jill Greenfield represents the accuser, who previously worked for Weinstein, and has filed applied for an anonymity order on behalf of her client who wishes to remain anonymous.

The accuser's claim "is for damages for personal injury, expenses, consequential loss including aggravated and exemplary damages and interest arising out of a series of sexual assaults inflicted" by Weinstein during her employment, according to the claim form. The companies are also listed as the accuser sees they are "vicariously liable."

"Both the assaults and the psychiatric damage cause to the Claimant were caused by the intentional assault by (Weinstein), the negligence and/or breach of the statutory duty and/or breach of contract of the (companies) and/or their Agents and/or their respective predecessors in title," the claim alleges.

Reps for Weinstein did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment, but has previously denied any allegations of non-consensual sex in statements through spokeswoman Holly Baird.

In a statement issued to USA TODAY Monday, Greenfield said she expects the claim to exceed £300,000, or roughly $400,000. She also says that the accuser has not filed a complaint with police about the alleged incidents that occurred after the year 2000 but believes she will do so.

Earlier this month, London’s Metropolitan Police Service, also known as Scotland Yard, confirmed its 12th report against Weinstein received through its Child Abuse and Sexual Offenses Command's Operation Kaguyak investigation.

Contributing: Andrea Mandell

[admin]

Dylan Farrow writes that Woody Allen abused her
by Jayme Deerwester
USA TODAY
8:24 p.m. ET Feb. 1, 2014 | Updated 8:47 a.m. ET Feb. 2, 2014

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Adopted daughter of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow pens an open letter claiming she was molested by the director.

Dylan Farrow, the adopted daughter of actress Mia Farrow and her then-partner, filmmaker Woody Allen, has written an open letter published by the New York Times website detailing a 1992 incident in which she says Allen molested her.

Though the case made headlines back in 1993 and her mother and brother Ronan have discussed the case before, this is the first time Dylan has spoken publicly on the subject.

Dylan, now 28, was adopted by Farrow and Allen in 1987 when she was 2. Five years later, she writes that Allen led her by the hand to a room in their house where "he told me to lie on my stomach and play with my brother's electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me."

She goes on to say that "he talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we'd go to Paris and I'd be a star in his movies."

What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.

For as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things to me that I didn’t like. I didn’t like how often he would take me away from my mom, siblings and friends to be alone with him. I didn’t like it when he would stick his thumb in my mouth. I didn’t like it when I had to get in bed with him under the sheets when he was in his underwear. I didn’t like it when he would place his head in my naked lap and breathe in and breathe out. I would hide under beds or lock myself in the bathroom to avoid these encounters, but he always found me. These things happened so often, so routinely, so skillfully hidden from a mother that would have protected me had she known, that I thought it was normal. I thought this was how fathers doted on their daughters. But what he did to me in the attic felt different. I couldn’t keep the secret anymore.

When I asked my mother if her dad did to her what Woody Allen did to me, I honestly did not know the answer. I also didn’t know the firestorm it would trigger. I didn’t know that my father would use his sexual relationship with my sister to cover up the abuse he inflicted on me. I didn’t know that he would accuse my mother of planting the abuse in my head and call her a liar for defending me. I didn’t know that I would be made to recount my story over and over again, to doctor after doctor, pushed to see if I’d admit I was lying as part of a legal battle I couldn’t possibly understand. At one point, my mother sat me down and told me that I wouldn’t be in trouble if I was lying – that I could take it all back. I couldn’t. It was all true. But sexual abuse claims against the powerful stall more easily. There were experts willing to attack my credibility. There were doctors willing to gaslight an abused child.

After a custody hearing denied my father visitation rights, my mother declined to pursue criminal charges, despite findings of probable cause by the State of Connecticut – due to, in the words of the prosecutor, the fragility of the “child victim.” Woody Allen was never convicted of any crime. That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up. I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls. I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating disorder. I began cutting myself. That torment was made worse by Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind eye. Most found it easier to accept the ambiguity, to say, “who can say what happened,” to pretend that nothing was wrong. Actors praised him at awards shows. Networks put him on TV. Critics put him in magazines. Each time I saw my abuser’s face – on a poster, on a t-shirt, on television – I could only hide my panic until I found a place to be alone and fall apart.

Last week, Woody Allen was nominated for his latest Oscar. But this time, I refuse to fall apart. For so long, Woody Allen’s acceptance silenced me. It felt like a personal rebuke, like the awards and accolades were a way to tell me to shut up and go away. But the survivors of sexual abuse who have reached out to me – to support me and to share their fears of coming forward, of being called a liar, of being told their memories aren’t their memories – have given me a reason to not be silent, if only so others know that they don’t have to be silent either.

Today, I consider myself lucky. I am happily married. I have the support of my amazing brothers and sisters. I have a mother who found within herself a well of fortitude that saved us from the chaos a predator brought into our home.

But others are still scared, vulnerable, and struggling for the courage to tell the truth. The message that Hollywood sends matters for them.

What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?

Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse.

So imagine your seven-year-old daughter being led into an attic by Woody Allen. Imagine she spends a lifetime stricken with nausea at the mention of his name. Imagine a world that celebrates her tormenter.

Are you imagining that? Now, what’s your favorite Woody Allen movie?

-- An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow, by Dylan Farrow

The incident in the attic was not the first time Allen touched her, she said, though she does not give a time frame for how long the alleged abuse went on. She only goes as far as saying that, "for as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things to me that I did not like. ... These things happened so often, so routinely, so skillfully hidden from a mother that would have protected me had she known, that I thought it was normal. I thought this was how fathers doted on their daughters. But what he did to me in the attic felt different. I couldn't keep the secret anymore."

At that point, she told Farrow, who left Allen that same year after the news broke of his relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, the 19-year-old daughter she had adopted with husband Andre Previn. (Allen and Soon-Yi married in 1997 and have two adopted daughters, Bechet and Menzie.)

A custody battle over their adopted children ensued and Allen's attorneys alleged that her mother encouraged her to make up the abuse allegations.

In September 1993, Connecticut state attorney Frank Maco declined to prosecute Allen, saying that while he had probable cause, he did not wish to inflict any further anguish on Dylan by making her testify. Farrow won custody of their adopted children and Allen was denied visitation rights.

"That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up," Dylan writes. "I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls. I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating disorder. I began cutting myself. That torment was made worse by Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind eye. Most found it easier to accept the ambiguity, to say, 'who can say what happened,' to pretend that nothing was wrong. ... For so long, Woody Allen's acceptance silenced me. It felt like a personal rebuke, like the awards and accolades were a way to tell me to shut up and go away."

But this award season, Dylan says she felt differently. "This time, I refuse to fall apart. ... Today, I consider myself lucky. I am happily married. I have the support of my amazing brothers and sisters. I have a mother who found within herself a well of fortitude that saved us from the chaos a predator brought into our home."

Why is all of this coming back up now? The Farrow family's feelings toward Allen have been stirred up by the award season attention being paid to him, including the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award at January's Golden Globes and his Oscar nomination for best original screenplay for Blue Jasmine.

"Imagine your 7-year-old daughter being led into an attic by Woody Allen," she commands the reader. "Imagine she spends a lifetime stricken with nausea at the mention of his name. Imagine a world that celebrates her tormentor."

She drives her point home by calling out the stars of his films. "What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis C.K.? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?"