title: CHAMPION OF WOMEN? How Hillary Used Private Investigators To Destroy Women Her Political Prize Husband Was Sleeping With: “We have to destroy her story”
text: Hillary won t be able to claim a vast right-wing conspiracy when she sees the article the left-leaning New York Times published. The article outlines how Hillary aggressively pursued the women her husband willingly chose to have sex with while he was married to her. Hillary never considered the women her philandering husband had sexual relations with were merely victims of a serial sexual abuser. He was her ticket to the ultimate power. The truth of the matter is, Hillary destroyed these women and protected her sexual predator husband, because having the ultimate political power was more important to her than the victims her husband discarded like yesterday s trash. This is the woman who is to be held up as an example for our daughters? This is the woman who young girls on college campuses say they ll vote for because she has matching genitalia? Hillary s true story needs to be told. She is nothing more than a two-bit opportunist who has clung to a charismatic serial sexual abuser of women for one reason, and one reason only to get to this point her ultimate goal the first serious female candidate for President of the United States. As usual with the Clinton s anyone who is harmed on their way up the political ladder, is of little or no consequence to them Last week, Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, criticized Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Clinton s affairs and her response to them, and said he might talk more about the issue in the final weeks before the election.That could be a treacherous strategy for Mr. Trump, given his own past infidelity and questionable treatment of women. Many voters, particularly women, might see Mrs. Clinton being blamed for her husband s conduct.It could also remind voters of a searing period in American history, and in Mrs. Clinton s life.Confronting a spouse s unfaithfulness is painful under any circumstance. For Mrs. Clinton, it happened repeatedly and in the most public of ways, unfolding at the dawn of the 24/7 news cycle, and later in impeachment proceedings that convulsed the nation.Outwardly, she remained stoic and defiant, defending her husband while a progression of women and well-funded conservative operatives accused Mr. Clinton of behavior unbecoming the leader of the free world.But privately, she embraced the Clinton campaign s aggressive strategy of counterattack: Women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with Mr. Clinton would become targets of digging and discrediting   tactics that women s rights advocates frequently denounce.The campaign hired a private investigator with a bare-knuckles reputation who embarked on a mission, as he put it in a memo, to impugn Ms. Flowers s  character and veracity until she is destroyed beyond all recognition. In a pattern that would later be repeated with other women, the investigator s staff scoured Arkansas and beyond, collecting disparaging accounts from ex-boyfriends, employers and others who claimed to know Ms. Flowers, accounts that the campaign then disseminated to the news media.By the time Mr. Clinton finally admitted to  sexual relations  with Ms. Flowers, years later, Clinton aides had used stories collected by the private investigator to brand her as a  bimbo  and a  pathological liar. Mrs. Clinton s level of involvement in that effort, as described in interviews, internal campaign records and archives, is still the subject of debate. By some accounts, she gave the green light and was a motivating force; by others, her support was no more than tacit assent.What is clear is that Mrs. Clinton was in a difficult spot. She was aware that her husband had cheated earlier in their marriage, but by her telling, she also believed him when he denied the accusations levied by Ms. Flowers and others.Mickey Kantor, the chairman of Bill Clinton s 1992 campaign, said that Mrs. Clinton wanted to separate fact from fiction and to size up the women making the claims. Let s say the woman has some not-helpful things that she has done in the past,  Mr. Kantor said.  Wouldn t you want to know that, and evaluate it? Mrs. Clinton and her husband declined to be interviewed, and her campaign did not answer questions about her support of efforts to undermine the women.  The country closed the book on these matters close to 20 years ago, and there is nothing whatsoever new here,  her spokesman, Brian Fallon, said in a statement.Her campaign also released statements from James Carville, Mr. Clinton s top campaign strategist, and two lawyers who worked for Mr. Clinton, saying that Mrs. Clinton had not overseen the counterattacks. Those who took the lead in responding to those attacks at the time have plainly stated that Hillary Clinton did not direct their work,  Mr. Fallon said.Neutralizing the WhispersFour years after Gary Hart fled a presidential race amid speculation about an affair, every accusation of womanizing was viewed as a mortal threat to Mr. Clinton s campaign.Stanley Greenberg, a pollster for the campaign who had strategized with the Clintons in the fall of 1991 about how to handle the rumors of infidelity, recalled Mrs. Clinton s acknowledgment that her husband had strayed. It was an uncomfortable meeting,  Mr. Greenberg said in an interview for an oral history of Mr. Clinton s presidency conducted by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.  I remember Hillary saying that,  obviously, if I could say no to this question, we would say no, and therefore, there is an issue. Weeks later, their first taste of trouble came in a Penthouse magazine story by a rock groupie named Connie Hamzy, who claimed Mr. Clinton had once propositioned her at a hotel in Little Rock, Ark.Mr. Clinton brushed off the story, saying that Ms. Hamzy had made a sexual advance toward him, George Stephanopoulos, the communications director of the 1992 campaign, recalled in his book,  All Too Human. But Mrs. Clinton demanded action. We have to destroy her story,  she said, according to Mr. Stephanopoulos.In what became a common tactic, affidavits were collected, from an aide and two others who stated that they were with Mr. Clinton at the hotel and that Ms. Hamzy s story was false. (Contacted recently, Ms. Hamzy said she stood by her account.)When the work was done, both Clintons called Mr. Stephanopoulos, together, to offer their thanks.An Explosive AccusationThe Gennifer Flowers story landed like a bomb weeks before the New Hampshire primary.Ms. Flowers, a lounge singer and Arkansas state employee at the time, sold Star magazine her story claiming an affair with Mr. Clinton that had lasted more than 10 years.In a meeting with aides, the Clintons scripted a unified defense that they delivered in the interview on  60 Minutes. With Mrs. Clinton nodding agreement, Mr. Clinton admitted to the TV audience to  causing pain in my marriage,  but denied an affair with Ms. Flowers. Mrs. Clinton professed sympathy for Ms. Flowers, saying she had been caught up in rumors through no fault of her own.But at a news conference the next day, Ms. Flowers reasserted her claims, playing excerpts from her calls with Mr. Clinton. The two could be heard discussing the attention the rumors were getting, and she joked about his sexual talents.Glimpsing the news conference in South Dakota, Mrs. Clinton directed an aide to get Mr. Clinton on the phone, Gail Sheehy, a journalist traveling with her, recalled in a recent interview. It was a reaction of no surprise, but immediate anger and action,  said Ms. Sheehy, who also described her observations in a Vanity Fair article that year.  Not anger at Bill, but at Flowers, the press and Republicans. Back on a plane that night, Mrs. Clinton told Ms. Sheehy that if she were to question Ms. Flowers in front of a jury,  I would crucify her. Weeks later, a small group of campaign aides, along with Mrs. Clinton, met at the governor s mansion in Little Rock, and they made a pivotal decision: They would hire Jack Palladino, a private investigator known for tactics such as making surreptitious recordings and deploying attractive women to extract information.An aide to the campaign, who declined to be publicly identified because the aide had not been authorized to speak for the Clintons, said Mrs. Clinton was among those who had discussed and approved the hiring, which shifted the campaign to a more aggressive posture.Mr. Kantor, the campaign chairman, said he did not know whether Mrs. Clinton had specifically approved Mr. Palladino s employment as the other aide recalled. But he said that she had seen a need for outside help. She believed we had to deal with the issue directly,  Mr. Kantor said.Mr. Palladino, who did not respond to requests for an interview, reported to James Lyons, a lawyer working for the campaign. In a memo that he addressed to Mr. Lyons on March 30, Mr. Palladino proposed a full-court press on Ms. Flowers. Every acquaintance, employer, and past lover should be located and interviewed,  Mr. Palladino wrote.  She is now a shining icon   telling lies that so far have proved all benefit and no cost   for any other opportunist who may be considering making Clinton a target. Soon, Ms. Flowers heard from ex-boyfriends and others who said they had been contacted by a private investigator. They would say that he would try to manipulate them,  Ms. Flowers recalled,  or get them to say things like I was sexually active. Karen Steele, who had worked with Ms. Flowers at the Roy Clark Celebrity Theater in Branson, Mo., was among those who received a visit.  I remember I got questioned about brothers Gennifer and I once dated,  she said.  It wasn t warm and fuzzy. While Mrs. Clinton considered the Lewinsky affair a  personal lapse  by her husband, she gave him credit for trying to break it off and manage someone who was a  narcissistic loony toon,  according to Ms. Blair s papers.Bill Clinton can be seen lying before Grand Jury about sexual relations he had with Monica Lewinsky, a young intern in the Oval Office, for which he was impeached later. Hillary s close friend Diane Blair   a political science professor whose papers were donated to the University of Arkansas Special Collections library   Hillary Clinton credited Bill Clinton with trying to break away from Lewinsky, whom she called a  narcissistic loony toon. :Soon after, Mrs. Clinton expressed pleasure to her friend that she and her husband were able to drive  their adversaries totally nuts  because they did not appear to be suffering.For entire story: New York Times 