In June of 2014, the Washington Free Beacon came upon an audiotape of then first lady of Arkansas Hillary Clinton from the 1980’s discussing with journalist Roy Reed a legal case she had been involved with in 1975. She had been the defense attorney for Thomas Alfred Taylor, who at age 41 had been accused of raping a 12 year-old girl in May of that year.
On the audio, Hillary, in an affected southern drawl, could be heard laughing at several inappropriate times. “He took a lie detector test,” she said. “I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs (laughs).” Then Hillary spoke about a section of Taylor’s underwear that was now missing where authorities had done a DNA match from what was found on the 12-year old while in the hospital. Hillary told Reed that she had flown to Brooklyn to receive an expert legal opinion in the case, and later told Washington County (Arkansas) Prosecutor Mahlon Gibson that “this guy’s ready to come from New York to prevent a miscarriage of justice (laughs).”
The tape concluded with Reed asking Hillary how the case turned out. “Oh, he plea bargained! Got him off for time served in the county jail, he’d been in the county jail about two months.”
The Free Beacon also found legal filings from the case, where Hillary had made accusations about the rape victim. In July, Hillary had asked for a psychiatric examination of the 12-year old and then filed an affidavit, essentially tarnishing the victim, saying that she was “emotionally unstable.” Hillary also added that she “had a tendency to seek out older men to engage in fantasizing.”
Her attacks in the affidavit continued. “I have been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming that they had attacked her body.” Hillary added that children from broken homes are “prone to such behavior.”
Taylor was initially indicted for rape, where he could have received a life sentence, but Hillary was successful at “pleading down” the case to illegal fondling of a minor. Taylor was sentenced to five years in prison, with four years suspended. He was to serve 12 months in the Washington County jail in Fayetteville, with two months suspended for the time he had already served. But the outcome would end up being something far shorter.
After the tape was made public two years ago, the Free Beacon tracked the victim down, but she refused to speak to the reporter, Alana Goodman. Daily Beast reporter Josh Rogin contacted her next, and he wrote an article about her terrifying experience. She also made an audio recording, and her name and image were deliberately not included. After hearing the tape, the victim, now in her 50’s, said about Hillary, “You lied on me…I realize the truth now, the heart of what you’ve done to me. And you’re supposed to be for women?”
Every cable network picked up the story and many major websites also did at the time. Hillary finally addressed the issue saying that “in our system you have an obligation, and once I was appointed I fulfilled that obligation.” Nothing more was reported until May of this year, when Rogin told CNN, “T here’s never been any evidence presented by anyone to substantiate the allegations that Hillary Clinton made in that affidavit.”