Media about Hillary’s child rapist defense Matters
It’s Mitt’s dog, haircut, and secret tape cubed.
Hillary didn’t have to defend the child rapist.
Once she took the case, she had to do everything ethical to provide the defense. But she didn’t have to take the case.
Hillary could have just said no.
And she didn’t have to cackle about getting the guy off easy. There’s nothing funny about it. Nothing.
It’s Mitt’s dog, haircut, and secret tape cubed. If the media wants it to be.
It also goes to a core political issue, Hillary’s sisterhood questioned again as rape victim speaks out.
This will be a big f-ing deal if and when Hillary runs.
It already is.
(video via Free Beacon)
Added: Some background on the MSNBC segment, noting Hillary’s explanations are inconsistent with past statements and correcting errors, from the Free Beacon:
In a panel this morning, MSNBC got the facts of Hillary Clinton’s rape case completely wrong, forcing host Joe Scarborough to issue a correction in a later segment.
In the first segment, Ezra Klein said that the rape victim was 15. The victim was actually 12.
He and other contributors also failed to note that Clinton’s recent statements on the case contradict her comments in the 1980s.
In an interview Saturday, Clinton claimed she was “appointed” to the case. “And once I was appointed I fulfilled that obligation,” she said.
This directly contradicts Clinton’s remarks in the 1980s, uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon, where she said she voluntarily took the case as a favor for a friend. “The prosecutor called me a few years ago, he said he had a guy who had been accused of rape, and the guy wanted a woman lawyer,” Clinton said at the time. “Would I do it as a favor for him?”
At first, MSNBC ignored this evidence, discussing her case as if she had no other choice but to defend the rapist.
In the second segment, Scarborough corrected this error, saying, “Hillary Clinton chose to do this. This completely changes the conversation. In that position, you and I both know there are a lot of female lawyers that would say no, I won’t take that case.”
He also pointed out the discrepancies in her comments: “We have tape of her last week saying something that does not appear to be truthful, when you compare her words of last week to what she said at the time.”
“Not every lawyer has to take every case that a friend asks them to take as a favor,” Mark Halperin agreed.
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Comments
A republican candidate would be vilified for this, but I do not fault her for taking the case. How could she know her prospective client was guilty or not at that point? She was told he wanted a woman attorney and she was asked to take it on. Obviously she did so because she was asked (the favor bank is important when you are an attorney is what is relatively a small city like Little Rock).
Everyone is entitled to a defense, even the guilty. Hillary did a good job as his counsel. If the prosecution screwed up the evidence, it is her job to use that to the advantage of her client.
Where Hillary is absolutely wrong is throwing her client under the bus by declaring him guilty and cavalierly promoting herself. That is an ethical violation. She has a duty to not disclose client secrets and that duty and privilege survives beyond the client’s life.
I am surprised people down dinged this, but okay. If you want to attack Hillary for being a hypocrite and defending a child molester I am okay with you doing so. I am not going to attack her for doing her job as a criminal defense lawyer (and I suspect even Rags or Professor Jacobson would agree too).
As for her conduct as a criminal defense lawyer, yeah, you can criticize the way she conducted herself. She was sleazy in going after the victim. Again, her role as criminal defense attorney was to get the best deal for her client (which she did) but she can’t complain when people come after her later on when she is running for office.
And what remains the biggest issue is the ethical violation post trial in regards to her client. She almost certainly did not get a signed off disclosure from him to say what she said. That should have gotten her disciplined by the Arkansas Bar Association (and if not disbarred, then sanctioned).
I gave you “up-twinkles”. IF Clinton had been ASSIGNED this case, and did nothing outside of the canon of ethics, I would say she was doing the work of the angels…or at least the work of a member of the criminal defense bar.
But she lied about being assigned the case, AND she certainly violated her ethical responsibilities (as you point out, in part). This little vignette is VERY indicative of her nature.
Which is evil. Very like Baracula.
I am even willing to give her the benefit of the doubt about taking the case (how can you tell that soon what the facts really are–and even a guilty molester is entitled to a legal defense) but her behavior is sure is revealing (and not in a good way) and the ethics violation is definitely an issue.
Hillary stupidly lied about being “assigned” the case, she wasn’t assigned it. But that is what Clintons do, they lie.
Hey EBL,
I am totally with you on the “How could she know if he was guilty” arm-chair 20/20 hindsight that some on the right are ignoring.
Let me also say: I am a guy who was falsely accused of rape in college. I am DEFINATELY in the camp of “everyone deserves competent vigorous defense.”
However – what Clinton did was, in effect, testify that this girl had made numerous false accusations.
That’s huge. If she were to be a prosecutor, and to change the outcome of some innocent guy, and tilt the decision by saying he had raped many times before – when nothing in the record indicated he had, I’d be equally outraged.
Hilary didn’t just defend a guy, who turned out to be guilty – which was entirely her job – she didn’t just infer that the girl was lying – she made a very “course of the river altering” accusation that the girl had fabricated false charges before.
She SLIMED that girl in other ways too. She did what feminists have accused “men” of doing for years : using the “nuts and sluts” defense. The girl is nuts and was a slut anyways.
That is why this is so potentially huge.
Good point LSBeene, and sorry for what you went through.
I do think we should debate Hillary’s defense of a child rapist endlessly, right up to the election and every time the “war on women” meme is raised.
I don’t get why people are ignoring the LIES Hilary told about the little girl to make it sound like she was the type of girl to make a rape charge up and falsely accuse someone. Instead you call that doing her job?????????????
And Hillary is certainly aware about attorney client confidences and privilege surviving the death of the client, that issue came up with Vince Foster’s attorney notes with the Clintons.
Clinton’s client was not dead at the time she made these remarks:
“I had him take a polygraph, which he passed – which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs,” she added with a laugh.
The interview took place in the 1980’s. Taylor, the alleged rapist client of Clinton, died in 1992 (according to the Free Beacon article).
So years before her client died, Clinton announced in a media interview that she believed her client was guilty of raping a 12-year-old and had lied about it on a polygraph.
Unless she had her client’s consent (highly unlikely), that was a clear — and serious — ethical violation.
I haven’t trusted polygraphs since the operator of one told me I was lying when I know I wasn’t.
Studies have shown that 20% of the people that pass a polygraph are lying, what doesn’t get mentioned is that about the same percentage of those failing are not lying.
IOW a polygraph is worthless to determine guilt or innocents.
Polygraphs are crap. When I was postgrad for psychology we played with the things and could defeat them at will. The value of the polygraph is found in the generally poor science education among criminals – believing it works, many cop or kick info upon being asked to take it.
Again, going to the meat of the case, the part that really frosts the cake was Hill-larry giving an affidavit in which she herself testified to hearsay that slimed the child.
THAT was both beee-zare and beyond the pale.
Early evidence of her sleazy win-at-all-costs mentality.
This is part of the republicans war on child rapists…
These are just facts, though. The official narrative is what counts, right?
So let’s see. We have: favor-doing using the law school clinic; voluntary representation of a child rapist notwithstanding supposed pro-women and girl activism; disclosing information and privileged communications about an identifiable client; mounting an aggressive defense that included discrediting a child rape victim; bragging and laughing about her trickery and the results (which included presenting the results of a polygraph test in which she knew her client was lying?); and lying now in recent interviews about the circumstances of how she came to take the case.
That pretty much sums it all up!
Both Hillary and Bill have always displayed a relentless careerism. They talked the idealism talk in their college years but once in the work place it was get ahead at any and all costs. This is why the idealistic left in the Democrat Party has never really trusted either of them.
It’s another example of Hillary lying, the outing of which brings to mind her other lies, so the accumulation grows nearer to the camel’s back-breaking straw, but we must remember that many of her lies may have been told under the duress of dodging sniper fire and mortar rounds.
Lemme guess. Hillary was ‘appointed’ as the lawyer for the defendant after she petitioned the court to be appointed as the lawyer for the defendant. Yes, she was appointed, but that’s an awfully… Clintonian… way of putting it.
“Previously Mahlon Gibson, the prosecuting attorney in the case, told CNN Clinton was appointed by the judge and expressed reservations in taking the case.”
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/07/clinton-explains-defense-in-controversial-rape-case/
Even if correct, so what?
Hill might even have had “reservations” about sliming the victim.
But she did it anyway.
Q: Why don’t lawyers play hide and seek?
A: Because nobody will look for them.
“We have tape of her last week saying something that does not appear to be truthful.”
A Clinton Lying? What an unusual circumstance!
This corrupt old crow is finished. All that’s left is carting off her carcass somewhere to rot.