Trump’s dubious character doesn’t mean he’s wrong about her actions.

Like many Millennial women, I’m not with her.
Nor am I excited about having the first female president if it is Hillary Clinton.
In fact, I’m disgusted — and one key reason is her actions when it comes to Bill Clinton’s affairs and alleged sexual assaults.
“Bill Clinton raped me, and Hillary Clinton threatened me,” said Juanita Broaddrick in a news conference with Donald Trump before Sunday’s presidential debate.
In an interview with right-wing outlet Breitbart published Sunday, Broaddrick recounted Hillary coming up to her shortly after the rape and saying, “ ‘I just want to thank you for everything you're doing in Bill’s campaign, and it's so nice to meet you.’ ”
“She grabbed ahold of my arm,” Broaddrick continued, “and my hand and she pulls me into her, and she says with this very angry look on her face — which had been so pleasant seconds before — and in a low voice says, 'Do you understand? Everything you do.' And that frightened me.”
“I felt like she knew (about the rape) and that she was telling me to keep quiet.”
Broaddrick’s account isn’t alone in depicting Hillary Clinton as waging warfare on women who threatened her husband’s career. In his memoir All Too Human, former Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos recalls discussing Connie Hamzy’s claim that Bill Clinton had propositioned her. Hillary’s response was: “We have to destroy her story.”
In a 1992 ABC News interview, Hillary Clinton derided Gennifer Flowers, with whom her husband would later admit an affair, as “some failed cabaret singer who doesn’t even have much of a résumé to fall back on.” According to a late friend of Hillary Clinton’s, Diane Blair, she called Monica Lewinsky a “narcissistic loony toon.”
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“I find her impulse to blame the woman — not only me, but herself — troubling,” wrote Lewinsky in Vanity Fair in 2014. “And all too familiar: With every marital indiscretion that finds its way into the public sphere — many of which involve male politicians — it always seems like the woman conveniently takes the fall.”
Now, to be clear: Hillary Clinton isn’t to blame for Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual assaults. But her own words and Broaddrick’s account suggest she might have helped her husband in the aftermath of his sexual activities — and done so with an eye toward his welfare, not ensuring justice was done.
Trump, who said during the debate that “Bill Clinton is abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women, and attacked them viciously,” is hardly the right messenger for this attack. While he denied in the debate having sexually assaulted anyone, his comments in the 2005 video with Billy Bush — “I just start kissing them. … And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab them by the p---y,” — were horrifying.
But Trump’s own very concerning background doesn’t mean he’s wrong about Hillary Clinton’s actions.
I was 10 years old when the Drudge Report broke news of the Lewinsky affair. Suddenly, I wasn’t allowed to read the newspaper anymore. I remember sneaking a look at a Rush Limbaugh newsletter and puzzling over why a stain on a blue dress could matter.
I can’t believe, 18 years later, the Clintons are still accepted in polite society. Nor am I the only millennial unenthused about the prospect of another Clinton White House: in the Iowa Democrat primary, Bernie Sanders beat Clinton by 70 points among 17- to 29-year-olds, according to exit polls. In New Hampshire, he beat her by 67 points among 18- to 29-year-olds.
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The focus should be on Hillary Clinton’s actions, absolutely. But she has chosen not only to remain married to Bill Clinton, but also to make him a significant part of her presidential campaign. The former president delivered a long prime-time speech at the Democratic convention, sentimentally speaking about his marriage to Hillary. That makes his actions fair game.
I would not be surprised if in the future, we look back at our attitude toward Bill Clinton the same way we now look in shock at how we accepted Bill Cosby. We may someday perceive Clinton as a creepy sexual predator who was able to use his powerful perch to take advantage of women.
In 1998, Hillary Clinton notoriously spoke of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” But here’s the reality: Barack Obama, whose two terms have hardly been marked by an absence of right-wing opposition, has never faced serious questions about whether he was involved in any sexual assault or predatory behavior toward women.
Women deserve better than Hillary Clinton as our country’s first female president.
Katrina Trinko is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.
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