Juanita Broaddrick
© Associated PressJuanita Broaddrick
Juanita Broaddrick told The Daily Caller on Monday that without President Bill Clinton, there may have been no #MeToo movement at all - and that Clinton is the reason that she has effectively been shut out of that movement.

Broaddrick's initial interview with NBC's Lisa Myers was supposed to run just 10 days after it was taped, but was held for nearly six weeks - until after the impeachment of President Clinton - and then run against the Grammy Awards.

Broaddrick said that Myers explained the delay by saying, "The good news is, you're credible. The bad news is, you're very credible." She spoke to another NBC producer (whose name she will not reveal) who reportedly told her that, "You know, Andy Lack plays golf with Bill Clinton nearly every weekend..."

And Broaddrick says that NBC's decision to hold her story may have influenced many to forgive and forget after Clinton's impeachment.
"Bill Clinton told men that 'I'm the president. I can do this and get away with it, you can too.' It brought down the seriousness of sexual assault. There may not have been a #metoo movement if not for his exoneration during the impeachment process. He sent a powerful message to America, saying 'you can do this too.' And NBC helped him to do that."
Broaddrick's story shot to the front page nearly two decades later, after her grandson taught her to navigate Twitter. Responding to Hillary Clinton's repeated claim that "all victims of sexual assault deserved to be believed," Broaddrick tweeted about her experience.


But when the Harvey Weinstein story broke and the #MeToo movement launched a worldwide campaign to recognize victims, TIME magazine approached Broaddrick to offer a statement. She provided a thoughtful, in depth statement, and then she waited.
"When I heard that the women were being chosen as 'person of the year,' I went out to look at the magazine to find my comment. It wasn't there. So I called, and they told me that there were comments from so many women that mine just hadn't been used. And I thought, 'then why did they come to me? Why did they ask me to begin with?'"
Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and Paula Jones
© Scott Olson/GettyJuanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and Paula Jones
Broaddrick said that her exclusion from the TIME article and the more recent dust-up over TBS's Samantha Bee's attack on Ivanka Trump make it clear that #metoo is a movement that is only for specific women. She said, "It's OK to attack certain women. I don't know why anyone accepted that, she's disgusting."

She also called Hillary Clinton out, saying that she couldn't possibly call herself a feminist in the era of #metoo. "No way, not after what she's done to her husband's victims."

Nearly four decades after Broaddrick says Clinton raped her, she says that she feels like more people believe her story now than when she first came forward. Some of that is because of Donald Trump, who during the campaign described her encounter with Clinton using the word "rape."
"When he said the word 'rape' on Hannity, it was like he was speaking directly to me. It was like he gave me permission to use the word too."
The rest, she says, is because she's learned to effectively use Twitter. She explained,
"My statements aren't filtered by the media. It gave me the power to do what I'm doing now. I'm not completely sold on President Trump tweeting, but I agree with him on fighting back against the media. That's the part of me that says 'keep up the tweeting!'"