RUTHFULLY YOURS

The former Fox News Anchor and part-time lingerie model, now working at the network where Matt Laurer locked his doors when not prowling the halls, has once again taken the lead in portraying President Donald Trump as a sexual predator who should be driven from office.

Now that Sen. Al Franken has said he will resign, Rep. John Conyers is on his way out, the Roy Moore dragon has been slain, the no longer politically useful Bill Clinton has been conveniently bashed, and the Democrats are once again pure as the driven snow, the decks have been cleared to for a full frontal assault on the man who dared save the country from that great defender of women who have been assaulted, Hillary Clinton.

Little more than a year after the Republican debate where Megyn Kelly grilled Trump on sexual harassment allegations, she resurrected three of his debunked accusers to regurgitate their earlier charges on her Dec. 11 show:

Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey and Rachel Crooks on Monday morning told NBC News’ Megyn Kelly about their alleged experiences with Trump. Lisa Boyne, a fourth accuser, joined them for a news conference later that day…

Leeds, Holvey and Crooks reflected on what it was like to watch Trump get elected after they had accused him of sexual harassment and assault…

Leeds first spoke to The New York Times last year, alleging that Trump groped her on an airplane more than 30 years ago

“He was like an octopus,” she said. “His hands were everywhere.”

That’s not how another passenger on that flight remembered the transatlantic flight., casting significant doubt on the tall tale told by Jessica Leeds of groping by the Donald in the first class section..He portrayed Leeds as something between a groupie and a stalker who was rebuffed by Trump, according to the New York Post:

Donald Trump’s campaign says a British man is countering claims that the GOP presidential nominee groped a woman on a cross-country flight more than three decades ago.

The man says he was sitting across from the accuser and contacted the Trump campaign because he was incensed by her account — which is at odds with what he witnessed.

“I have only met this accuser once and frankly cannot imagine why she is seeking to make out that Trump made sexual advances on her. Not only did he not do so (and I was present at all times) but it was she that was the one being flirtatious,” Anthony Gilberthorpe said in a note provided to The Post by the Trump campaign…

As for Samantha Holvey, who was a Miss USA contestant when private citizen Trump ran the thing, basically seems to object to Trump looking at the contestants, she says, in the same way she would later be looked at on national television by millions of men:

It was heartbreaking last year. We’re private citizens and for us to put ourselves out there to try and show America who this man is and how he views women, and for them to say ‘Eh, we don’t care,’ it hurt,” said Samantha Holvey, who claims Trump would walk into dressing rooms during the Miss America pageant in 2006, the year she competed in the contest.

Holvey said the first time Trump came backstage, she thought he was there for a “meet and greet” with all the contestants.

“It was not. It was ‘hi,’ just looking me over like I was just a piece of meat. I was not a human being. I didn’t have a brain, I didn’t have a personality,” she said. “I was just simply there for his pleasure. It left me feeling very gross, very dirty.”

It was a beauty contest, duh, and despite her complaint she wasn’t there to play the piano. This was not an episode of “The Apprentice.” She walked around in a bathing suit displaying hr, uh, personality.

Some will say that Gilberthorpes’ account may be no more credible than Leeds’ accusation. But that’s the point. Leeds accusation was accepted as credible immediately. Smear first, prove later. Guilty until proven innocent. To various extents it worked with Romney and Cain, and most recently Judge Roy Moore, why not Trump?

The rush to believe Leeds’ claims of groping stand in the face of the blind eye to the claims of the likes of Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones and others, claims backed up by contemporaneous witness testimony and a victorious lawsuit by and with a cash settlement to Jones.

Kelly, who proudly trots out Trump’s accusers and confronted him in the presidential debate, once called Juanita Broaddrick, who credibly accused Bill Clinton of rape, a liar. This led to a later public smackdown by Newt Gingrich on an episode of “The Kelly File” where the former speaker grilled Kelly on why she consistently went after Trump but refused to call Bill Clinton the sexual predator he was.

While Kelly was attacking Trump, she ignored the resurrection of talk about Hillary Clinton being an enabler of her husband’s extramarital activities at the same time the anti-Trump media was hyping the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump engaged in dirty talk about women. Newt Gingrich confronted Kelly about her double standard:

The exchange, as reported by the New York Times, went as follows, with Kelly arguing that Trump’s dirty talk in a trailer was worse than Bill Clinton’s turning of the Arkansas governor’s mansion and the Oval Office into a personal Playboy penthouse:

“You are fascinated with sex and you don’t care about public policy,” he told Ms. Kelly.

Ms. Kelly: “Me? Really?”

Mr. Gingrich: “That’s what I get out of watching you tonight.”

Ms. Kelly: “You know what Mr. Speaker, I’m not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by the protection of women and understanding what we’re getting in the Oval Office and I think the American voters would like to know …”

Mr. Gingrich then began to talk about how Mrs. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, would return to the White House “because you, after all, are worried about sexual predators,” an apparent allusion to Mr. Clinton’s affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

“Listen, it’s not about me. It’s about the women and men of America,” Ms. Kelly replied. She said polls showed that voters were concerned about the allegations against Mr. Trump and believed they were an issue.

As the interview progressed, Mr. Gingrich turned to baiting Ms. Kelly.

“Do you want to comment on whether the Clinton ticket has a relationship to a sexual predator?” Mr. Gingrich said, adding: “I just want to hear you use the words, ‘Bill Clinton, sexual predator.’ I dare you. Say, ‘Bill Clinton, sexual predator.’”

Kelly did not call and has not called Bill Clinton what he in fact was, a sexual predator, insisting instead that the Clinton assaults on women had been covered by her and others and wishing Gingrich well on attending to his “anger issues.”

As noted, Kelly, in a sparring contest with Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway essentially called Juanita Broaddrick, who along with other Bill Clinton victims, had resurfaced during the 2015 campaign, a liar:

Megyn Kelly claimed that Clinton rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick denied any rape in a 1998 affidavit. Close, but no cigar, Megyn. The story is a little more complicated than that. It was not that her story was false as Megyn Kelly implied. Like many rape victims, Broaddrick felt no one would believe her and she simply wanted to put it behind her and not be forced to relive it, particularly in any legal setting: she resisted interviews, fearing no one would believe her charge against a popular President…

Broaddrick feared the retaliation of Team Clinton as well as the glare of a disbelieving media. Thus she signed an affidavit denying the rape, again trying to avoid being forced to relive the horrible experience. But she told Starr and his office the affidavit was false. Starr didn’t pursue the rape story not because it was false, but because it was not part of his obstruction of justice investigation.

At the Trump press conference, Broaddrick, tired of being accused of being part of a vast right-wing conspiracy, and afraid that her attacker would once again occupy the White House with the woman who orchestrated the attacks on Bill Clinton’s “bimbo eruptions”, repeated her accusation:

“Actions speak louder than words,” Broaddrick said. “Mr. Trump may have said some bad words but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me. I don’t think there’s any comparison.”

Kelly, who professes to be against the objectification of women has on her resume the famous GQ photo shoot for that magazine’s December, 2010 issue in which the rising Fox News star poses provocatively in lingerie, an odd occurrence for someone who would later pompously condemn the objectification of women, except when used to advance her career. Trump would bring this up after the debate. As Politico reported:

Donald Trump continued his onslaught on Fox News host Megyn Kelly on Thursday, retweeting a follower who criticized a photo shoot she did for GQ Magazine.

“And this is the bimbo that’s asking presidential questions?”, the tweet said. It included two photos of Kelly posing provocatively and the following text: “Criticizes Trump for objectifying women… Poses like this in GQ Magazine.”

A fair question, one would think. But then, for Megyn Kelly, this is not about protecting women. It is about advancing your career on Matt Lauer’s network and bringing down a President whom you despise.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.