Leslie Millwee alleges that she was sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton in the 1980s. (Breitbart)
Ahead of the third and final presidential debate, a new woman is coming forward to accuse Bill Clinton of sexual assault.
Leslie Millwee told her story in an interview with Breitbart News. She says that she was sexually assaulted by Clinton three separate times during 1980 when Clinton was the governor of Arkansas.
On Wednesday afternoon, CNN reported that Millwee will be one of Donald Trump’s guests at the presidential debate.
Here’s what you need to know about Leslie Millwee and her story.
1. She Interviewed Clinton for an Arkansas TV Station
President Bill Clinton speaks during a White House address in April 1999. (Getty)
During 1980, Leslie Millwee worked as a television reporter in Arkansas. She says that she interviewed the state’s governor, Bill Clinton, at least 20 times for the station in Fort Chaffee. This was in part because she was covering the story of Cuban refugees escaping detainment in Fort Chaffee, but she had interviewed the governor many times before that.
She says that Clinton would frequently make inappropriate comments towards her at the TV station, calling her “pretty girl” and following her around the station. This allegedly progressed into Clinton touching her shoulder and making other advances, she says in her Breitbart interview.
At the time that Clinton allegedly harassing Millweee, she was 20 years old and Clinton was 34.
2. She Says Clinton Sexually Assaulted Her Three Separate Times
President Bill Clinton speaks to congress in April 2000. (Getty)
Millwee alleges that she was assaulted by Bill Clinton on at least three occasions. The first was when Clinton reportedly approached her while she was editing in the TV studio. Millwee told Breitbart that Clinton started rubbing her shoulders and then moved his hands down towards her breast, and she says that when she asked him to stop, Clinton laughed.
She also says that after this first instance, she confronted Clinton and asked him not to do anything like this ever again. Yet Clinton allegedly made similar advances on her two more times after that.
“That happened on three occasions, and each time it escalated where the aggressive nature of his touch and what he was doing behind me escalated,” she told Breitbart.
Millwee also says that the second time Clinton assaulted her, he was grabbing her while touching himself and he had an orgasm. He did the same on the third instance, Millwee says.
She recalls that after the third assault, she ran into the ladies’ room and began crying. Finally, Millwee says that one night Bill Clinton came to her apartment, knocking on the door and trying to get her to come out. At the time, Millwee says her grandmother was staying with her because Millwee was terrified and did not want to be alone. Eventually, she left the TV station and decided not to go public with her story.
3. She Is One of Eight Women to Accuse Clinton of Sexual Assault
Juanita Broaddrick says that Bill Clinton raped her in the 1970s. (Twitter)
Millwee is far from the first woman to make similar accusations against Bill Clinton.
There’s also Juanita Broaddrick, a woman who says that Bill Clinton raped her in a hotel room in the 1970s. Broaddrick also alleges that Hillary Clinton was aware of this and that she tried to silence her. Then there’s Paula Jones, who says that in 1991, Bill Clinton escorted her back to his hotel room and exposed himself to her. She filed a lawsuit against Clinton, and it was during this case that Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky was discovered. Clinton settled out of court with Paula Jones for $850,000.
Kathleen Willey says that President Clinton groped her without her consent in the oval office in 1993. Eileen Wellstone says that Clinton sexually assaulted her outside of a pub in 1969. Sandra Allen James says that she was invited up to Clinton’s hotel room during a fundraiser, and Clinton forcibly put his hand up her dress. Christy Zercher, a flight attendant, alleges that Clinton grabbed her inappropriately and exposed himself to her on a plane. And two unnamed college students from Yale and the University of Arkansas respectively have said that Clinton assaulted them.
This is in addition to women who have accused Clinton of inappropriate behavior and women who have come forward saying they had a consensual affair with Clinton.
4. She Says She Was Afraid of Coming Forward With Her Story
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton wave to the crowd of supporters on November 3, 1992. (Getty)
Both Republicans and Democrats are in a tricky situation when it comes to these allegations of sexual assault, often believing all of the women on one side but doubting all of the women on the other side.
Donald Trump in particular is now raising Millwee’s story as an issue despite what he has said about his own accusers in the past few weeks. Trump and his surrogates have mocked these women, saying that the fact that they didn’t come forward until weeks before an election proves that they’re liars who simply want to ensure he doesn’t win in November. Now Trump is promoting the story of a woman who did not come forward about her alleged sexual assault until weeks before an election, which is exactly what Trump had been complaining about.
In fact, sexual assault victims often do not tell their stories until much later, and most of the women who accused Trump of sexual assault said they were afraid of what Trump, a powerful man, would do to them if they came forward. This is exactly how Millwee says she felt about Bill Clinton, telling Breitbart that she did not know how she could possibly defend herself against a powerful governor and saying that that’s why she waited so long.
5. Millwee Also Places Blame on Hillary Clinton
Bill and Hillary Clinton speak to students at Norristown High School in Pennsylvania, PA. (Getty)
Some Democrats may wonder why stories of Bill Clinton’s misconduct are relevant to the 2016 election, considering it’s not Bill who is running for president. Clinton critics argue that these stories are relevant because of how Hillary Clinton dealt with the women making accusations against her husband.
Indeed, Hillary Clinton reportedly worked behind the scenes alongside President Clinton’s aides to discredit women coming forward with stories about Bill. Those working for Clinton referred to these women’s stories popping up in the news as “bimbo eruptions,” according to The Washington Post.
For the most part, this attempt to discredit women had to do with those going public to say they had consensual affairs with the president, such as Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers. But Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who says Bill Clinton raped her, alleges that she once met Hillary Clinton at a fundraiser and that Hillary tried to intimidate Broaddrick and get her to keep quiet. She says that she interpreted this from Hillary Clinton telling her, “Do you understand everything you do?”
Broaddrick also told The Washington Post that she considers Hillary Clinton to be an enabler.
“I always felt if she’d been a stronger person…she could have done something about his behavior,” she said.
In her interview with Breitbart, when asked why she didn’t come forward until now, Leslie Millwee says that she almost did so in the 1990s during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but she saw the hell these other women went through and was not prepared for that.