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Juanita Broaddrick is a woman who accused former President Bill Clinton of rape. But at one point she signed an affidavit saying that Clinton did not rape her, and then she later said that she perjured herself in signing the affidavit. Here is how this Buzzfeed article describes it:

When [Paula] Jones’ lawyers subpoenaed her, Broaddrick signed an affidavit denying that Clinton had ever raped her. It was her decision to do so. “I did not want to get involved, and I signed it hoping to stay out of it,” she told me. The next year, Clinton was on trial for impeachment for allegedly obstructing justice during the Jones case. Federal prosecutor Ken Starr’s investigation team reached out to Broaddrick to ask whether Clinton had forced her to file a false affidavit. Broaddrick was afraid of lying to a federal grand jury, she says. After Starr gave her immunity from prosecution for perjury, she decided it was time to tell the full truth.

Broaddrick still desperately wanted to stay anonymous, but Jones’ lawyers used her name in a 1998 court filing. As Clinton’s impeachment trial loomed closer, reporters started staking out her house and tabloids printed vicious rumors about her family. Broaddrick agreed to sit down for a television interview with NBC News' Lisa Myers on Dateline. She also hoped to help impeach Clinton.

But the meticulously fact-checked Dateline report didn’t run until two weeks after the impeachment trial, in which Clinton was acquitted. Starr found Broaddrick’s rape claims inconclusive — the statute of limitations on them had passed decades before — and didn’t include them in the report, although he allowed Republicans to hear them.

This is somewhat confusingly written, so my question is, did Juanita Broaddrick ever testify against President Clinton before a grand jury as part of special prosecutor Ken Starr's investigation of President Clinton? Or did Ken Starr granting her immunity from prosecution for perjury just enable her to tell her story to the press, and did she never actually testify before Ken Starr's grand jury?

If she did testify before Ken Starr's grand jury, was this before or after Clinton's impeachment trial? (It's important to note, by the way, that Ken Starr concluded that Broaddrick's story was not credible.)

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    "It's important to note, by the way, that Ken Starr concluded that Broaddrick's story was not credible." But that's not what it says. It says, "Starr found Broaddrick’s rape claims inconclusive — the statute of limitations on them had passed decades before". Remember that Starr was trying to prosecute. But he couldn't prosecute a rape for which the statute of limitations had expired. What he was actually investigating was whether Clinton had more recently done something to intimidate her into lying. Because witness intimidation would have had a fresh statute of limitations.
    – Brythan
    Commented Nov 11, 2017 at 7:28
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    @Brythan I'm not making that statement based on the Buzzfeed article, I'm making it on the basis of additional knowledge I have. In addition to investigating witness tampering, Ken Starr also investigated the substance of Broaddrick's story and found it not to be credible. Commented Nov 11, 2017 at 13:32
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    Then you should cite that. Because I still think that you are overstating his claim. We can see this with Weinstein. The typical prosecutor doesn't determine if a claim is credible. A prosecutor determines if a claim will be credible to a jury. This is why rapists like Weinstein can continue to operate for so long. I.e. what they say is that a claim is not provable, not that it isn't true.
    – Brythan
    Commented Nov 11, 2017 at 19:12
  • @Brythan But a prosecutor should also only take to court cases he's reasonably sure to win - eg. he has the witnesses and/or evidence to back up the charge. He shouldn't take a "hopeless" case in front of a jury. In the Weinstein case, the problem is that few have actually reported him and/or few would be willing to testify fearing for their careers... ie. a pretty hopeless case to prosecute (this has, of course, changed now). Commented Nov 13, 2017 at 16:52

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No.

Juanita Broaddrick did sign a sworn written statement (which is what an affidavit is) in 1997 denying that Clinton had made “any sexual advances”, in lieu of testifying pursuant to a subpoena that was issued to her, but did not testify in person under oath either in a deposition or in a trial of any kind.

She was interviewed by independent counsel Kenneth Starr in 1998 after he granted her immunity from prosecution for perjury in her original affidavit, who mentioned that she recanted her affidavit testimony in a footnote to his report, but she did not testify in person under oath at any time in connection with that investigation. Absent a grant of immunity, her statement to Kenneth Starr renouncing her previous affidavit would have entailed her confessing to perjury.

She did make a number of public statements and participated in some public interviews, and also some statements intended to be off the record that were secretly recorded about her encounters with Bill Clinton.

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  • Do you have any sources for the fact that she didn't testify before Ken Starr's grand jury? Also, my interest in this matter arose from seeing people claim on Twitter that Ken Starr offered to let her testify before his grand jury, but she refused. Do you know whether there's any truth to that? Commented Nov 14, 2017 at 4:37
  • @KeshavSrinivasan If she had testified before a grand jury then Ken Starr couldn't have included that in his report because grand jury testimony is confidential. I don't know how anyone can know what someone offered to someone else behind closed doors that wasn't included in Ken Starr's report.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Nov 21, 2017 at 2:17
  • Well, for one thing it's possible Juanita Broaddrick has discussed the subject in interviews. Commented Nov 21, 2017 at 2:19

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