Huckabee to Megyn Kelly: Media exploiting Duggar family

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee continued to defend the Duggar family in an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on Monday night, attacking the media for its “exploitation” of the girls whom older brother Josh Duggar admitted to molesting when he was a teenager.

Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, where the Duggar family resides, said he was “stunned and shocked” that the girls were “exploited in this by the media for their own purposes.”


“There was no interest in the media to protect those girls. There was no interest to make sure that their interests were served. And I think your interview pointed out that they had a very different reaction to all of this than did their critics, who were out to destroy their family,” Huckabee told Kelly, referencing an earlier interview with family members on “The Kelly File.”

Reopening the issue in this public way violates state law, he said.

“Megyn, he is an unadjudicated minor at the time that this happened. You’re an attorney. You understand that a person is innocent until proven guilty,” Huckabee said.

“But he confessed,” Kelly responded.

“He was never adjudicated, but he did not confess in a court of law. The law does not hold him accountable, even if he confesses,” Huckabee said.

The bigger issue, he added, is that the girls were exploited by the “illegal, unlawful release” of the information surrounding their molestation.

“It was not about the victims. It was about trying to go after the Duggars. They have been known as a family that is a Christian family, and if a liberal has anything like this kind of situation, it’s no big deal,” Huckabee said, echoing Sarah Palin in his invocation of Lena Dunham, the liberal star of HBO’s “Girls,” who has said that, when she was 7 years old, she inappropriately touched her 1-year-old sister.

As a true Christian believer, Huckabee said, he has never tried to hurt or destroy anyone.

“You want to uphold truth, you want to uphold common sense, but you don’t go out there to specifically target individuals and see if you can exploit them for your own gain,” he said, adding that he has not heard much about his support of the Duggars from people on the campaign trail.

“I never get a question about this unless it’s to say, ‘By the way, why is this such a big issue?’” he said.