Todd Akin Re-Emerges: Hillary Clinton ‘Delegitimized’ Rape Victims

Republican U.S Senate candidate Todd Akin addresses supporters during a campaign event Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012, in Kansas City, Mo. Akin is running against Democrat Claire McCaskill for Missouri's Senate seat. (AP Pho... Republican U.S Senate candidate Todd Akin addresses supporters during a campaign event Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012, in Kansas City, Mo. Akin is running against Democrat Claire McCaskill for Missouri's Senate seat. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Former Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), whose Senate campaign went down in flames after he claimed the female body could shut down a pregnancy in a case of “legitimate rape,” slammed Hillary Clinton’s treatment of sexual assault victims in an interview published Thursday.

“Hillary Clinton, in fact, has made a practice of trashing women with legitimate claims to having been assaulted,” Akin told the Daily Mail’s David Martosko.

The conservative Washington Free Beacon recently published audio recordings in which Clinton discussed a 1975 child rape case where she represented the defendant. Clinton’s comments on the recordings suggest that she thought her client was guilty even after he passed a polygraph test. The Daily Beast later spoke with the victim, who said Clinton “took me through hell” and “lied like a dog.”

“It is incredibly hypocritical that Hillary Clinton would carry on about an imagined ‘Republican war on women’ when she once got a child rapist off the hook who she knew to be guilty, and laughed about how she did it when interviewed,” Akin told the Daily Mail. “In the process, she de-legitimized the legitimate claims of the 12-year-old victim and then slandered the victim to justify her tactics.”

Akin also suggested Clinton hired private investigators to “silence those women” who accused her husband, former President Bill Clinton, of sexual harassment.

The former congressman broke over a year of media silence to promote his upcoming book, “Firing Back,” which lays out a defense of his infamous “legitimate rape” remark.

“My comment about a woman’s body shutting the pregnancy down, was directed to the impact of stress on fertilization,” Akin writes, as quoted by the Daily Mail. “This is something fertility doctors debate and discuss. Doubt me? Google ‘stress and fertilization,’ and you will find a library of research on the subject.”

“The research is not conclusive, but there is considerable evidence that stress makes conception more difficult,” he continues. “And what could be more stressful than a rape?”

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. What did Todd Akin actually do wrong? His political career unraveled because he repeated a standard GOP position out loud.

    On second thought, maybe we should be trying to make them state their views openly this way more often…

  2. Yo, Akin,… your mouth…you need to shut that thing down

  3. Why do Repugs hate the Constitution?

    “The Sixth Amendment guarantees the rights of criminal defendants, including the right to a public trial without unnecessary delay, the right to a lawyer…”

  4. See, the Brit press knows how to gin up reader excitement…
    Here in America, this morning, viewers were treated to the North Korean dictator getting the fair & balanced equivocation, “Well, he may have a point. I don’t know,”* regarding the PRK’s ire at a comic film from airhead morning network meat puppets.

    • Savannah Guthrie, Today
  5. Avatar for korvu korvu says:

    Do the GOPERs really want the old bands coming back (Akin, Rove, Cheney …)?

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

48 more replies

Participants

Avatar for webcelt Avatar for jw1 Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for meri Avatar for rich_in_nj Avatar for imkmu3 Avatar for krusher Avatar for squirreltown Avatar for sandyh Avatar for mantan Avatar for xian Avatar for chuck_voellinger Avatar for conrad_poohs Avatar for michandaro Avatar for fitley Avatar for truthdogg Avatar for 538liberal Avatar for twowolves Avatar for dickweed Avatar for sweetdee Avatar for snarkworth Avatar for joefromlowell Avatar for meta Avatar for mawm

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: