NEW YORK — Bill Clinton rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick charged that NBC News Anchor Andrea Mitchell “very definitely” owes her an apology for claiming Broaddrick’s highly credible accusations had been “discredited” during a Today Show segment.
“She was trying to discredit me herself,” Broaddrick said of Mitchell’s actions. “She just had her say that morning on the Today Show and she just won’t back down from it even though they did remove her words.”
Broaddrick was speaking on Sunday night on this reporter’s talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” broadcast on New York’s AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia’s NewsTalk 990 AM.
She was referring to a May 19 Today Show segment in which Mitchell was reporting on an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity in which Donald Trump utilized the word “rape” while discussing accusations against Bill Clinton regarding women.
In the initial segment, Mitchell stated: “Donald Trump using that word unprompted, during an interview last night with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Bringing up a discredited and long-denied accusation against former president Bill Clinton, dating back to 1978 when he was Arkansas Attorney General.”
Broaddrick says that Clinton raped her twice in a hotel room in 1978.
In August, Breitbart News broke the story that NBC News quietly scrubbed the word “discredited” from the online version of Mitchell’s report. The NBC online editing occurred in response to a letter from Broaddrick’s attorney, who is also her son, demanding an on air apology for using the word “discredited.”
Neither Mitchell nor the network provided any documentation or evidence to back up the “discredited” claim. As critics pointed out in response, Broaddrick’s accusation has not been discredited. Indeed, NBC itself vetted Broaddrick’s story when she originally broke her silence by speaking to the network’s show Dateline in 1999.
The network also caught up with Norma Rodgers, Broaddrick’s friend and employee, who confirmed Broaddrick’s story of how Rodgers found Broaddrick in her hotel room in the immediate aftermath of the incident with a badly swollen lip and mouth and that Broaddrick’s pantyhose had been ripped off. Broaddrick had stated that Clinton bit her on the lip during the alleged rape, which she said transpired in 1978 at her room in a Little Rock hotel.
NBC’s Lisa Myers, who conducted the 1999 interview with Broaddrick for the network, stated in a 2014 interview that “Nothing has come up since that story was reported that in any way undercuts what Juanita Broaddrick said.” Myers has since retired from the network.
On Sunday, Broaddrick stated that her son had asked NBC for a public apology over the “discredited” claim but no apology has been forthcoming. “I can’t believe that it will ever happen,” she said, referring to the prospects of NBC or Mitchell apologizing.
Broaddrick came on the show to discuss her first book, You’d Better Put Some Ice On That: How I Survived Being Raped by Bill Clinton, set for release on January 3.
The title of the book comes from a statement Clinton allegedly made to Broaddrick in the immediate aftermath of the rape. Broaddrick says that her lip was bleeding and was swelling up because Clinton bit it during the violent sexual assault.
“I just think it is finally time,” Broaddrick responded when asked why she decided to write the book. “When I did my interview with Dateline in 1999 I had no idea that I would ever write a book. But now there are so many people, Aaron, that have no idea who I am and what my allegations were.”
“And I go through this in complete detail in my book. Explaining how I was harassed. How I was denied the voice that President Trump finally gave me.”
‘Nothing New’
Last January, Broaddrick said that NBC’s Mitchell told her by phone that the network would not conduct a new interview with Broaddrick “because you have nothing new to add” since Broaddrick first went public in an NBC interview in 1999.
An NBC News spokesperson confirmed to BuzzFeed in January that the network pursued an interview with the rape accuser but decided against running a story after purportedly establishing that there was nothing new.
“When Juanita Broaddrick went public last week, NBC News sent an associate producer to Arkansas to see if there was anything new in her story. We established there was not, and decided not to pursue it any further,” the spokesperson said at the time.
NBC seems to be overlooking a series of new revelations from Broaddrick, including:
- Broaddrick says Bill Clinton repeatedly called her after the alleged rape.
- Broaddrick says that Hillary Clinton tried to silence her.
- Broaddrick told me that Clinton raped her not once but twice during the same infamous encounter in 1978.
- Broaddrick says NBC removed the bombshell charge that Hillary tried to silence her.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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