Meet the four Clinton accusers who joined Trump

Donald Trump held an unprecedented pre-debate photo-op Sunday with four women who have been sharply critical of Hillary Clinton — three of whom have accused President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment or abuse.

Here are the basics on their allegations:


Paula Jones

Jones, 50, claims that in 1991 then Gov. Bill Clinton exposed himself and crudely propositioned her at a Little Rock, Arkansas hotel. Jones was a low-level state employee when, she alleges, a member of Clinton's security detail summoned her to his hotel suite.

In 1994, after Clinton became president, Jones filed a civil suit alleging sexual harassment. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected Clinton's arguments that he was immune from suit while serving as president.

Jones' suit helped set in motion the discovery of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky and his eventual impeachment. It was at a 1997 deposition in the civil case that Clinton was asked whether he had sex with Lewinsky and denied it. That denial was investigated by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and contributed to the report recommending Clinton's impeachment.

Clinton denied any sexual harassment of Jones, saying he could not recall ever meeting her. A judge eventually dismissed Jones' suit, saying she had not proven any damages from the alleged incident. While the ruling was on appeal, Clinton agreed to pay her $850,000 to settle the case, while not admitting any liability.

Kathy Shelton

In 1975, police charged an Arkansas man with raping Shelton, who was just 12 at the time. The defendant in the case, Thomas Taylor, wanted a female lawyer to defend him and the case was eventually assigned to Hillary Clinton, then a law professor at the University of Arkansas. Conservatives have alleged that Clinton volunteered for the assignment, but Clinton claimed in her book "Living History" that she tried to beg off the case. A prosecutor confirmed Clinton's version of events in a 2014 interview with CNN.

There's no doubt that Clinton aggressively defended Taylor, including by filing a motion demanding that Shelton be subjected to a psychiatric exam and questioned about similar claims she allegedly made about other men.

"At 12 years old, Hillary put me though something you would never put a 12-year-old through and she says she's for women and children," Shelton said as she sat beside Trump Sunday.

Clinton has said she had a professional duty to vigorously defend her client. "In our system, you have an obligation and when I was appointed I fulfilled that obligation," she said in a 2014 interview. She negotiated a plea bargain for Taylor, who pled guilty to a "fondling of a child" offense and was sentenced to a year in county jail and four years probation.

On Sunday, Shelton also accused Clinton of "laughing on tape saying she knows they did it." She appeared to be referring to a tape-recorded interview Clinton gave in the 1980s. In it she noted that Taylor took a lie detector test and passed. Clinton does laugh in the interview, after saying his passing of the test "forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs." She also refers to the episode as a "terrible case."

Juanita Broaddrick

Broaddrick's claims that Bill Clinton raped her came to public attention to during the Paula Jones litigation after Clinton became president, but it circulated in Little Rock for years before Clinton made it to the White House.

Broaddrick asserts that she met Clinton in 1978 while he was running for attorney general. She was a registered nurse who had just begun running a nursing home. Broaddrick says that after meeting Clinton at a campaign stop, she invited him to coffee in the lobby of a Little Rock hotel. She contends Clinton said the lobby was too crowded with reporters and suggested they go to her room, where he raped her so violently that her lip was blooded.

While the Jones suit was pending, Broaddrick signed an affidavit denying that the alleged assault ever took place. However, under questioning by lawyers and FBI agents working for Starr, she recanted her denial and said that Clinton had, in fact, raped her.

In 1999, Clinton's lawyer David Kendall issued a statement that denied any assault, but appeared to leave open the possibility of a consensual encounter of some sort. "Any allegation that the president assaulted Mrs. Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false," Kendall said then. Clinton was asked about the incident at a press conference and deferred to his lawyer's statement.

Broaddick said Sunday that Hillary Clinton "threatened" her. Broaddrick has previously claimed that shortly after the alleged assault she ran into Hillary Clinton at a campaign rally and Clinton menacingly told her, "I want you to know that we appreciate everything you do for Bill." Broaddrick says she interpreted the statement as a threat urging her to remain silent about what happened.

Kathleen Willey

Willey was a recently-widowed White House volunteer in 1993 when, she claims, Bill Clinton forcefully kissed her and groped her in the Oval Office.

Starr's office also investigated Willey's claims and gave her immunity. Clinton was asked about the alleged incident and denied it. Prosecutors found some inconsistencies in Willey's statements about the alleged encounter and on other issues.

They ultimately decided not to bring charges against Clinton over his denial, but another woman Willey claimed to have confided in about the incident at the time, Julie Hiatt Steele, with obstruction of justice and making false statements to grand juries investigating the matter.

The jury in Steele's trial deadlocked. Prosecutors, whom Steele bitterly accused of persecuting her, elected not to pursue a retrial.