EXCLUSIVE: Former GOP senate candidate Todd Akin doubles down on 'legitimate rape' comment and says 'hypocrite' Hillary Clinton 'de-legitimized' a 12-year-old rape victim

  • Akin said in 2012 that abortion bans didn't need to include exceptions for rape victims because 'legitimate rape' rarely leads to conception
  • The comment became a national rallying cry for claims of a GOP 'war on women' and caused his campaign to crash and burn
  • Akin is attacking Hillary Clinton in his first interview since the campaign implosion, saying she 'de-legitimized' a 12-year-old rape victim by defending her attacker in court
  • He insists he was right about his ill-fated 2012 comments, and claims there's a double standard at play that benefits the Clintons
  • Hillary, he claims in a new book, ' has made a practice of trashing women with legitimate claims to having been assaulted' – including shutting down 'bimbo eruptions' during her husband's 1992 presidential campaign

By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor

Published: 13:42 EST, 25 June 2014 | Updated: 16:59 EST, 25 June 2014

The poster child for what Democrats claim is a GOP 'war on women' lashed out at Hillary Clinton on Wednesday in exclusive comments to MailOnline, calling her 'hypocritical' for defending a child rapist in 1975 and laughing about it in a taped interview.

Former Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin crashed and burned in his 2012 bid for a U.S. Senate seat, after claiming that exceptions in abortion bans for rape victims weren't necessary because 'if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.'

'But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment,' he said ten weeks before that election, 'but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.'

Akin emerged from 18 months of media silence to double down on those comments, and to blast the leading Democratic presidential contender with a blistering verbal salvo.

Scroll down for video

'Legitimate rape': Todd Akin insists he was right about the rarity of pregnancy caused by rape, and is attacking Hillary Clinton for her role in marginalizing her husband's sexual-assault accusers

'Legitimate rape': Todd Akin insists he was right about the rarity of pregnancy caused by rape, and is attacking Hillary Clinton for her role in marginalizing her husband's sexual-assault accusers

Double standard? Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the rapist of a 12-year-old girl in 1975, winning him a 'time served' sentence of just two months in jail

Double standard? Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the rapist of a 12-year-old girl in 1975, winning him a 'time served' sentence of just two months in jail

Akin says he hasn't rule out running for office again, and may be laying the groundwork with a new book explaining his epic collapse in 2012

Akin says he hasn't rule out running for office again, and may be laying the groundwork with a new book explaining his epic collapse in 2012

'It is incredibly hypocritical that Hillary Clinton would carry on about an imagined "Republican war on women",' the former six-term congressman told MailOnline, '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.'

'In the process, she de-legitimized the legitimate claims of the 12-year-old victim and then slandered the victim to justify her tactics.'

Clinton was embarrassed ten days ago when the Washington Free Beacon published an audio interview from the early 1980s in which she chuckled about representing a man who raped a 12-year-old girl.

She knew he was guilty, she said on the recording, but worked the legal system to limit his punishment to 'time served' – about two months in jail.

'I had him take a polygraph, which he passed – which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs,' she laughed at the time.

Todd Akin is ending his nearly two years of silence after his comments about 'legitmate rape' ended his U.S. Senate hopes in Missouri, pushing a book and attacking Hillary Clinton in the process

Todd Akin is ending his nearly two years of silence after his comments about 'legitmate rape' ended his U.S. Senate hopes in Missouri, pushing a book and attacking Hillary Clinton in the process

Akin complained to MailOnline about a decades-long pattern of Hillary Clinton making light of sexual assaults by attacking the victims.

The future first lady ran a legal aid clinic when she took the case in 1975. In an affidavit on behalf of Thomas Alfred Taylor, who died in 1992, she described his child victim as 'emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing,' and wrote that she had a history of 'false accusations.'

Akin pointed to Clinton's actions during her husband's 1992 presidential campaign to marginalize women who accused him of sexual abuse, as evidence that establishes a pattern.

'She hired private investigators to silence those women – ‘bimbo eruptions’ in Clintonspeak – who had been seduced or sexually assaulted by her husband,' Akin told MailOnline.

Those cases involved accusations from women including Paula Jones, who accused the future president of sexually harassing her, and Juanita Broaddrick, who leveled charges that he violently raped her.

'Hillary Clinton, in fact, has made a practice of trashing women with legitimate claims to having been assaulted,' Akin said.

'I faced a media firestorm for an unclear comment. It is the responsibility of the media to make it clear that liberal Democrats like Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are the true perpetrators of the ‘war on women.'

Akin, like Clinton, is promoting a book – Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom – due in stores on July 15.

The book includes a carefully parsed defense of his 'legitimate rape' comment to a television station that doomed his 2012 campaign and brought even GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney out of the woodwork to chastise him.

 

More...

'When a woman claims to have been raped, the police determine if the evidence supports the legal definition of "rape",' Akin writes. 'Is it a legitimate claim of rape or an excuse to avoid an unwanted pregnancy? Are the police warranted to take action against a crime or not?'

'In short, the word "legitimate" modifies the claim and not the action. There have been women who have lied about being raped, as Norman McCorvey did before the U.S. Supreme Court. The infamous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 was based on a lie.'

'My comment about a woman's body shutting the pregnancy down,' Akin adds in the book, 'was directed to the impact of stress on fertilization. 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. And what could be more stressful than a rape?'

Akin told MailOnline that he hasn't closed the door on running for office again in the future.

'I have not ruled out the possibility of running for office again in the future, but it is not on my radar at the moment,' he said Wednesday.

 
Backlash: Akin faced an angry feminist lobby in 2012 after his gaffe became the subject of daily outrage in the press

Backlash: Akin faced an angry feminist lobby in 2012 after his gaffe became the subject of daily outrage in the press

Crash and burn: Akin's solid lead over Sen. Claire McCaskill evaporated, along with much of his public following, after his shocking gaffe about rape and pregnancy

Crash and burn: Akin's solid lead over Sen. Claire McCaskill evaporated, along with much of his public following, after his shocking gaffe about rape and pregnancy

That position casts his dissection of his 2012 implosion in a different light.

He insists, for instance, that he never denied the possibility of pregnancy from forcible rape.

'In fact, several fantastic young Americans who campaigned with me were themselves the products of rape,' Akin writes. 'And they were thankful I would stand with them.'

Akin's full-contact body slam on Hillary Clinton is about what he sees as a double standard. He was pilloried in 2012 for putting his foot in his mouth by answering a hypothetical question, he says, while Clinton has largely escaped criticism for defending Taylor, an actual rapist.

The 12-year-old victim, now a middle-age woman, told The Daily Beast last week that 'Hillary Clinton took me through hell,' adding that she would confront the former secretary of state if she had the chance.

'I would say [to Clinton], "You took a case of mine in '75, you lied on me… I realize the truth now, the heart of what you’ve done to me",' she said.

'And you are supposed to be for women? You call that [being] for women, what you done to me? And I hear you on tape laughing.'

Assaulter-in-chief? Then-President Bill Clinton faced questions from reporters in 1999 after Juanita Broaddrick, an Arkansas woman, accused him of raping her 21 years earlier in a hotel room

Assaulter-in-chief? Then-President Bill Clinton faced questions from reporters in 1999 after Juanita Broaddrick, an Arkansas woman, accused him of raping her 21 years earlier in a hotel room

Broaddrick gave an NBC News interview in 1999 describing what she said was a brutal sexual assault and Bill Clinton's alleged cavalier attitude afterward

Broaddrick gave an NBC News interview in 1999 describing what she said was a brutal sexual assault and Bill Clinton's alleged cavalier attitude afterward

'Bimbo eruption': Hillary Clinton helped tamp down national outrage after a string of women, including Paul Jones (pictured) accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment and sexual assault

'Bimbo eruption': Hillary Clinton helped tamp down national outrage after a string of women, including Paul Jones (pictured) accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment and sexual assault

Akin writes in 'Firing Back' that two weeks after his 'legitimate rape' comment became national news, 'sexual predator' Bill Clinton received a standing ovation for his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.

At he same convention, he adds, Democrats memorialized Ted Kennedy, whose Chappaquiddick incident brought charges that he let a young woman he preyed on drown to save his reputation.

If Akin runs again, he'll need a resurgence of support from Christian evangelicals, many of whom abandoned him in the final weeks of the 2012 campaign.

His book seems calculated, in part, to rebuild that bridge.

'Perhaps one of the greatest opportunities to return to good ideas and refute bad ideas is through the church,' he writes. 'Churches exist in part to warn people of the bad consequences of bad ideas and teach obedience to God’s laws. ... Today, for all the good work our pastors do, many make the mistake of not applying the Bible to the critical issues of our day. This is probably one of the most urgently needed changes in America.'

Comments (43)

Share what you think

 View all

The comments below have not been moderated.

His new book should be titled, I'm an idiot. GOP will never win another election with the crazy bible beaters leading the pack.

1
1
 Click to rate

What an idiot. Dont let the libs push politics on you. Nobody likes a guy like this, he's a complete fool. Think for yourselves.

0
1
 Click to rate

The good news for Republicans is this nut Akin is not running for president. The bad news for Democrats is that the nut Hillary probably is.

0
1
 Click to rate

two politicians arguing about who is more out of touch and vile. Reminds me of why america had a revolution to begin with.

0
2
 Click to rate

Oh, THIS idiot again!

0
8
 Click to rate

1975? Wow, now I know the republicans ARE really scared. Grasping much?

4
21
 Click to rate

Do nothing republicans are waging a all out smear campaign against Hillary because they know they can't front a candidate who can beat her in the next presidential election. The republican party has truly become the party of b.s.

11
25
 Click to rate

Hillary certainly has many faults but Akin is on a whole different level. Some would say the GOP needs to muzzle that boy but I don't think anybody really listens to him or Cheney much....

13
38
 Click to rate

I know a lot of conservative Republicans, and they all hate Akin for costing us an entirely winnable Senate seat with his idiocy.

6
33
 Click to rate

If Hillary can do it why can't anyone else...unless you think Hillary is special, she's made out magic and cat whiskers.

28
11
 Click to rate

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

Add your comment

By posting your comment you agree to our house rules.

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now