October 10, 2016, 05:05 pm
Trump raises Chappaquiddick in anti-Clinton tirade
By Jonathan Easley
Donald Trump savaged Hillary Clinton as an enabler of former President Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual crimes and raised former Sen. Edward Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick scandal to argue that the media is seeking to cover up the Clinton family’s misdeeds.
Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, Trump called Bill Clinton a “predator” and accused Hillary Clinton of making it “possible for him to take advantage of even more women.”
“Bill Clinton was the worst abuser of women ever to sit in the Oval Office,” Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said. “He was a predator. Hillary Clinton systematically attacked and discredited the victims of Bill Clinton’s sexual harassment and assault.”
“For decades, Hillary Clinton has been deeply familiar with her husband’s predatory behavior and instead of trying to stop it, she made it possible for him to take advantage of even more women,” Trump continued. “She put even more women in harms way. Then she says she loves women. … She’s a total hypocrite.”
Reading from a teleprompter, Trump then raised the decades-old Chappaquiddick incident involving Kennedy to argue that the media is complicit in hiding the Clinton’s crimes.
In 1969, Kennedy crashed his car into a lake and then fled the scene. A passenger in the car, Mary Jo Kopechne, died in the accident. Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of the accident.
“The hypocrites in the media don’t want to talk about what Hillary Clinton has done to these victims,” Trump said. “They don’t want to talk about what their political heroes have done to other women. People like Kennedy, Chappaquiddick — we remember that.”
“Driving his car into a pond,” Trump continued. “Instead of calling the police, possibly saving her life, in fact almost definitely being able to save her life, he went home and went to sleep, did not report the incident to the police for 12 hours, yet he was hailed a hero.”
Trump is vowing to keep Bill Clinton’s rape accusers front-and-center for the final month of the presidential race as he seeks to stop the bleeding from the video footage of obscene remarks he made in 2005 that have rocked his campaign.
Just ahead of Sunday night’s presidential debate, Trump held an impromptu press conference featuring three of those women: Paula Jones, Juanita Broadrrick and Kathleen Willey.
A fourth woman, Kathleen Shelton, was also on hand. Hillary Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee, had been appointed to defend the man accused of raping Shelton when she was 12. The man pleaded to a lesser charge.
Trump said he’d continue to highlight the stories of those women until the Clinton campaign stops attacking him for having made lewd comments.
“If they want to release more tapes saying inappropriate things, we’ll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things,” Trump said. “There are so many of them, folks.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/300286-trump-raises-chappaquiddick-in-anti-clinton-tirade
