Hillary Clinton vehemently denied in an interview Sunday that her husband’s extramarital affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky was an abuse of power and added that former President Bill Clinton was right not to resign amid a scandal that led to his impeachment on perjury and obstruction charges.
“Absolutely not,” the former first lady said during the CBS "Sunday Morning" interview when asked if Bill Clinton should have stepped down.
“It wasn't an abuse of power?” CBS News correspondent Tony Dokoupil asked.
Clinton responded: “No. No.”
Hillary Clinton, who went on to be elected to the Senate and served as President Obama’s secretary of state, said the relationship was not an abuse of power because Lewinsky “was an adult.” At the time of the affair, Lewinsky was 22.
Separately, in 1999, former nursing home administrator Juanita Broaddrick said Clinton raped her in a hotel room in 1978, when he was attorney general of Arkansas. Clinton denied the accusations.
Hillary Clinton ultimately brought the topic of conversation to President Trump.
“But let me ask you this: Where's the investigation of the current incumbent, against whom numerous allegations have been made, and which he dismisses, denies, and ridicules?” she said. “So, there was an investigation [of Bill], and it, as I believe, came out in the right place.”
Clinton’s comments came quickly after she rejected any comparisons between her husband’s actions and the allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during the confirmation process.
Calling Kavanaugh’s swearing-in ceremony at the White House “a political rally” in a CNN interview last week, Clinton lambasted the justice and Trump.
"It further undermined the image and integrity of the court," she said. "And that troubles me greatly, it saddens me, because our judicial system has been viewed as one of the main pillars of our constitutional government."
Clinton also blasted Trump’s treatment of Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her allegation that Kavanaugh assaulted her at a high school party in 1982.
"The president’s been true to form," Clinton said, according to The Hill. "He has insulted, attacked, demeaned women throughout the campaign, really for many years leading up to the campaign, and he’s continued to do that inside the White House."