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Why does the press continue to ignore the Juanita Broaddrick story?

Monday, January 3, 2000

By Julia Malone

WASHINGTON- Among the outgoing year's momentous events, one remains unprobed by a curiously uncurious press corps.

More than 10 months ago, an Arkansas nursing home owner named Juanita Broaddrick accused the president of brutally raping her in 1978.

Millions of Americans watched NBC's "Dateline" interview as she tearfully described Bill Clinton, then state attorney-general and candidate for governor, holding her down and biting into her lip to subdue her. A former political supporter, Broaddrick had no apparent motive for concocting her story, and she sought no financial gain.

In response, the president issued a one-sentence denial through his lawyer.
He has yet to respond in person.

"Can you not simply deny it, sir?" ABC's Sam Donaldson asked him at a news conference in March. But Clinton passed up the opportunity to comment or to express outrage that such a charge might be raised against him.

The news media, which have hounded presidents and their staffs until they receive full answers on other subjects, have not pursued the rape question. In interviews and news conferences, no reporter has followed up on Donaldson's query.

Yet as the year closed, the nagging question has reappeared on the presidential campaign trail. Perhaps as the new century begins and Clinton makes his exit, more will be discovered. Here is a summary of the developments in the 1999Juanita Broaddrick story:

December 1998. As the House of Representatives moves toward its final vote on the Clinton impeachment, word spreads about allegations by "Jane Doe #5" among the secret materials gathered by independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Wavering Republicans are urged by colleagues to read the testimony about a sexual assault from 1978. Some lawmakers emerge from the guarded reading room bent on voting to impeach.

By February 1999, the Internet and political gossip circles have it that "Jane Doe #5" is Juanita Broaddrick, a fifty-something business executive from Van Buren, Ark., who wants to keep her privacy. However, NBC correspondent Lisa Myers persuades her to grant an interview for the program "Dateline." Even so, NBC delays airing the startling charges and cites the need for more fact checking until after the Senate impeachment trial ends in acquittal. The network also waits until the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post publish their own interviews with Broaddrick. On Feb. 19, the president's private lawyer, David Kendall, issues a formal denial. "Any allegation that the president assaulted Mrs. Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false," it says. "Beyond that, we're not going to comment."

On Feb. 24, NBC's "Dateline" airs the taped interview in which Broaddrick says that Clinton's bite left her lip bruised and swollen. She says his parting advice was to "put some ice on it." After the interview is aired, the TV networks, including NBC's Nightly News, shy away from the story.

March 19: At the president's first full-scaled news conference after his impeachment, Sam Donaldson confronts Clinton directly. "There's been a statement made by my attorney," the president says. "He speaks for me, and I think he spoke quite clearly." In the months that follow, reporters drop the issue. Feminists say little or nothing. Rape crisis center workers acknowledge that Broaddrick's case, including her reluctance to come forward, is typical of victims of sexual assault. But they decline to speak against Clinton. Some cite the federal funding they receive as a result of the Violence Against Women Act, which was signed into law by Clinton.

On Dec. 3 former independent counsel Starr is asked at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast whether he believes the Broaddrick charges and responds that they are "sobering to the point of devastating." He adds that the investigators who interviewed Broaddrick "found her entirely credible."

On Dec. 14, a public forum for Vice President Al Gore in Derry, N.H., brings the Broaddrick issue back into focus. A woman asks Gore whether the rape charge has changed his view of Clinton. The vice president gives a rambling and stammering response in which he says, "I didn't know what to make of her claim" but acknowledges that he had not seen Broaddrick's "Dateline" interview.

On Dec. 16, a leading defender of the president and former White House aide Lanny Davis remarks on a TV talk show that Broaddrick had changed her story to the FBI. "How do you know, Lanny?" responds interviewer Sean Hannity on MSNBC.

On Dec.20, Broaddrick files a lawsuit in federal district court seeking any records on her kept by the White House or Justice Department. The complaint, filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch, cites the Davis comments as evidence that the Clinton administration was using government records as ammunition against Broaddrick.

Dec. 21, White House legal spokesman Jim Kennedy tells reporters that there will be no comment on the Broaddrick lawsuit.

Julia Malone is a national correspondent for Cox Newspapers