Leslie Millwee, a former reporter for a local Arkansas TV station, accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her in 1980.

Leslie Millwee, a former reporter for a local Arkansas TV station, accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her in 1980. | POLITICO Screen grab

Former TV reporter accuses Bill Clinton of sexual assault

Leslie Millwee, a former reporter for local Arkansas TV station KLMN-TV, has accused former president Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her three times in 1980, while Clinton was governor of Arkansas, Breitbart News reports.

Millwee told Breitbart she interviewed Clinton about 20 times publicly and also met with him in KLMN-TV's newsroom. She said he groped her and rubbed his genitals on her while they were alone in KLMN-TV's small editing room.

"He came in [to the editing room] behind me, started hunching me to the point that he had an orgasm," she told Breitbart's Aaron Klein. "He’s touching, trying to touch my breasts and I’m just sitting there very stiffly, just waiting for him to leave me alone. And I’m asking him the whole time, 'Please do not do this. Do not touch me. Do not hunch me. I do not want this.' And he finished doing what he was doing and walked out.

She also said Clinton once gave her half of his tie and wrote his name on her reporter's notebook, and that he once tried to visit her apartment but left after she did not let him enter. She said she was so nervous after the assaults that her grandmother came from Oklahoma to keep her company. After Clinton came to her apartment, she said, her grandmother advised her to quit her job at the TV station.

"My grandmother said, you know, 'I don’t see any good coming out of this from you,'" Millwee said. "You can go to your news director and tell her. You can go to the station manager or the owner, but this is the governor of Arkansas. You’re a young woman. You’re vulnerable. If you feel like this is just too much for you, then let’s find you another job and get away from this person. It was just the final straw. After staying up most of the night discussing it with my grandmother, I decided then and there that I was going to leave the station."

Breitbart also interviewed three of Millwee’s friends, who said Millwee told them in the late 1990s about the alleged assaults.

The revelation comes as Republican nominee Donald Trump faces a barrage of accusations of inappropriate behavior and assault from women who have come forward in the pages of The New York Times, People, The Palm Beach Post and elsewhere, accusations Trump has denied and characterized as a conspiracy between the campaign of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and the media.

The Trump campaign has also responded by pointing to similar allegations leveled against Bill Clinton, even coordinating a new media push by three women who had previously accused the former president as accusations against Trump have mounted.

Millwee's accusations are new, and Breitbart, which published a 19-minute video interview with Millwee, has been supportive of Trump and dismissive of the numerous women who have accused him of sexual assault. The site is led by Steven Bannon, who took a leave from Breitbart to serve as CEO of Trump’s campaign.

Millwee said she considered coming forward in the late 1990s, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but she was intimidated after seeing how the media treated other women who accused Clinton of sexual assault.

"I almost came out during the Monica Lewinsky and Kathleen Willey situation," she said. "I watched that unfold a little bit. I was very prepared to go forward then and talk about it, and I watched the ways the Clintons and Hillary slandered those women, harassed them, did unthinkable things to them, and I just did not want to be part of that. I had very small children at the time, I had a job at pharmaceuticals, it was a very conservative situation. I didn’t want to do anything to bring harm to my career and my family."

Millwee said she decided to finally go public now because she believes that the media still has not held Clinton accountable for his alleged sexual assaults. A Breitbart spokeswoman said Millwee reached out to Breitbart on her own "months ago after Hillary's ad that sex assault victims have a right to be heard."

"It seems like a good time to talk about it because I think there’s still no accountability in the media for the behavior of the Clintons," she said. "If it affects the media, affects the election, so be it. I’m sure I’m not the only woman that went through this kind of thing with Bill Clinton. So I hope it encourages other women, and I hope the millennials and the younger people that were not around and don’t remember what happened and what Bill Clinton did and has done, his legacy of sexual, uh, deviance and his behavior — it’s never really been — yes, he’s been impeached, yes he’s been disbarred, but still, the man doesn’t admit or acknowledge many of his victims."

No cable networks said they had Millwee scheduled for interviews on Wednesday. Fox News' Sean Hannity, who hosted three other Clinton accusers for an extensive interview last week, did not respond to an email asking if he would have Millwee on as well. A Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to a follow up question asking if Millwee would appear on Hannity's show.

On Wednesday afternoon, it was announced Millwee will be a guest of Trump's at the final presidential debate in Las Vegas. The day of last week's debate, Breitbart ran exclusive interviews with three Clinton accusers (and another woman whose rapist Clinton defended when she was a public defender). The four women were Trump's guests at the debate, and were later featured on Hannity's show.

Hadas Gold contributed to this report.