New York Times: Clinton Women Scandals ‘Threaten’ Hillary Campaign

Darren McCollester/Getty Images
Darren McCollester/Getty Images

The New York Times admits that Bill Clinton’s sex scandals now “threaten” his wife Hillary Clinton’s Democratic campaign for the White House.

Times correspondent Amy Chozick, who covers Clinton, reports that entertainer and Clinton supporter Lena Dunham, who campaigns for Clinton, is privately “disturbed” by the scandals, and particularly by Clinton’s targeting of Bill’s female accusers:

But at an Upper East Side dinner party a few months back, Ms. Dunham expressed more conflicted feelings. She told the guests, at the Park Avenue apartment of Richard Plepler, the chief executive of HBO, that she was disturbed by how, in the 1990s, the Clintons and their allies discredited women who said they had had sexual encounters with or been sexually assaulted by former President Bill Clinton.

The conversation, relayed by several people with knowledge of the discussion who would speak about it only anonymously, captures the deeper debate unfolding among liberal-leaning women about how to reconcile Mrs. Clinton’s leadership on women’s issues with her past involvement in her husband’s efforts to fend off accusations of sexual misconduct.

Breitbart News has extensively reported on the Clintons’ problems with numerous women, including Bill Clinton rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick.

Clinton is also dealing with revelations about to be made in the new documentary “Weiner,” about the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, which is opening Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. As The Times reported:

“Weiner” has become a source of heightened anxiety for Ms. Abedin and the Clinton campaign. She and her husband have pleaded with filmmakers to see the movie but have not been allowed to do so, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversations who could discuss the subject only without attribution, as the project has been kept under tight control. A spokesman for the filmmakers denied this and said they would have shown the couple the film had they asked.

Mrs. Clinton is referred to in overt and subtle ways throughout “Weiner.” One sequence focuses on a claim in New York magazine that Ms. Abedin was being pressured to choose between remaining a Clinton insider and supporting her husband.

Ms. Abedin turns to Mrs. Clinton’s longtime spokesman, Philippe I. Reines, for guidance, preferring his counsel to Mr. Weiner’s terse advice toward the end of his campaign that she “act like a normal campaign candidate’s wife” and say, “I think Anthony is doing an amazing job.” Ms. Abedin is also shown heeding the suggestion of Mr. Reines to not appear in public with Mr. Weiner as he casts his ballot. Mr. Weiner finished with less than 5 percent of the vote.

CNN, which in 2013 abandoned a disputed documentary project about Mrs. Clinton’s career, placed an unsuccessful bid on the film.”

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