EXCLUSIVE: We'd be together today, if it wasn't for Chelsea: Two decades after their affair, Gennifer Flowers tells Bill Clinton she finally wants to 'sit down and talk' - as she shares never-seen-before nude pictures
- Flowers's 12-year affair with Bill Clinton was exposed in 1992 during his presidential campaign
- She bitterly regrets rejecting him when he last begged to see her and says he's the 'love of her life'
- Launching a career as a sex columnist she says Clinton taught her everything she knows
- Bill told her Hillary was 'bisexual' and that he had 'no problem with that'
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Their 12-year affair made Gennifer Flowers one of the most high profile mistresses in America. Now, two decades after they split amid scandal, the former news reporter from Little Rock, Arkansas wants to ‘sit down and talk’ with Bill Clinton.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Gennifer has spoken of her deep regret at turning down Clinton’s pleas to talk some eight years ago and revealed her belief that they would still be together today, were it not the birth of Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea.
She said: ‘We have some unresolved issues that it would be nice to sit down and talk about now. He was the love of my life and I was the love of his life and you don’t get over those things.’
'Let's talk:' When he contacted her eight years ago Gennifer Flowers admits she wasn't ready to talk to her former lover, Bill Clinton. Today she longs to
Gennifer thought that speaking out on 27 January 1992 would be the beginning and end of interest in her affair with Clinton. Instead it shaped the Presidential campaign and changed her life forever
As well as speaking candidly about the affair and its ongoing impact on her life, Gennifer has released previously unseen images from her Penthouse shoot to MailOnline. She was featured in the magazine's December 1992 issue.
By then all lines of communication with Clinton had been severed and she had no contact with him for 13 years when he called out of the blue. She said: ‘He called me back in 2005 in New Orleans. He wanted to put on the hoodie and jog on over like he used to.
'First I was just shocked. He was so adamant about wanting to sit down and talk to me in person.
'It almost seemed like what I had heard of people who were going through a 12 step program and wanted to atone to people for various things.’
At the time Gennifer, 63, was recently divorced after a ten year marriage.
Baring her soul...and the rest: Gennifer in a previously unseen picture from her Penthouse 1992 shoot
Beautiful and Liberated: Gennifer loved posing for Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione who took these unseen photographs himself
La Vie en Rose: Gennifer says she regrets nothing about the Penthouse shoot that appeared in the magazine in December 1992
She said: ‘I was scared. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him in my heart of hearts. I was just afraid. But there’s going to be an attachment forever.
‘If we had the opportunity to sit down and visit with each other in person, I’m not saying the romance would be rekindled but we will always have something. Whatever you might call it.
'Bill and I would be together today if it wasn't for politics. It was me, Bill and Hillary. Then they had Chelsea and the stakes got too high.'
Trust Me I'm a Politician: Bill Clinton appearing on CBS's '60 Minutes' in January 1992 with Hillary looking on as he denies any affair with Gennifer Flowers
The other 'other' women Clinton denied having 'relations' with: Monica Lewiinsky embraces Clinton at a public rally in 1996
It is 21 years since Gennifer’s allegations of a long-running affair with then Democratic candidate Bill Clinton became the most sensational event of the 1992 campaign.
The Madonna of Little Rock, Arkansas: Gennifer Flowers at the time the scandal of her affair with Clinton broke
On 23 January 1992 tabloid, The Star named Gennifer as Clinton’s mistress. Three days later he and wife Hillary appeared on 60 minutes, side by side, flat denying the claim.
Six years later Clinton admitted to having sexual relations with Gennifer ‘one time’ in 1977 in his deposition to lawyers representing former Arkansas State employee Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit against him.
By then Flowers was already well and truly defined by the scandal which had made both her, and Clinton, household names.
Apparently driven on by the belief that the ‘truth will set you free,’ she proceeded to tell her story in a best-sellling book and pose for Penthouse magazine.
Penthouse alone reportedly earned her close to $1million in the aftermath of the scandal.
She said: ‘I was singing in nightclubs, wearing very sexy outifts and gowns, a very independent liberated woman. I was the Madonna of my day – in Little Rock.’
On posing for Penthouse Gennifer said: ‘I made the decision to do it.
'No-one made me do or asked me to do anything that made me feel uncomfortable.
I knew Bob (Guccione) would be making me look as good as possible and what woman doesn’t enjoy that?'
Of the infamous publisher, whose website boasts his favorite pictures from the Penthouse archives, she said, 'Bob was just a stud.'
But while some might assume that, all these years later, Flowers – who has established herself as a cabaret singer in New Orleans - would want to shed herself of those associations and of the ‘mistress’ title, she has chosen instead to embrace them.
She said: ‘Why not? I was a mistress for many years.’
And so as part of what she refers to as ‘the extended liberation of Gennifer Flowers’ her latest incarnation is as a sex advice columnist.
'Mistress Flowers': Sex advice columnist Gennifer says Clinton taught her 'everything she knows' about sex
‘Ask Mistress Gennifer’ will run daily on the Guccione Collection website – a site devoted to the archives of Penthouse publisher, Bob Guccione.
Demonstrating something of the playfulness that saw her snare the then Governor of Arkansas she said: ‘I’m going to have to thank Bill for some of the advice I’m going to be giving.
'It will be based on experiences I had with him.
Gennifer in 1996: No longer in Clinton's bed but still in the spotlight in 1996
She added: 'I wish he would write to me.
'He could do it. People don't have to send their name.
'Really he taught me a lot.'
Clinton, now 67, also shared a lot of intimacies regarding his marriage to Hillary.
They left Gennifer in no doubt that the union is far from 'traditional.'
She said: ‘What they have is very strong.
'It obviously worked for them but I’ve never considered theirs a traditional marriage.’
When rumours surfaced recently of an affair between Hillary Clinton and her transition office chief, Huma Abedin, 37, Gennifer was not surprised.
The rumours concerning Huma, wife of disgraced former Mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, 49, emerged as she stood by her husband in the wake of his recent 'sexting' scandal.
Revelations that he had sent intimate pictures of himself and steamy messages to 23-year-old Sydney Leathers - a girl he had only ever 'met' online - finally did for his New York Mayoral campaign last week.
Huma Abedin stood by husband, Anthony Weiner, when he was embroiled in a SECOND sexting scandal earlier this year. Prompting many to ask, 'Why?'
Up Close and Personal: Huma Abedin leans in to advise Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, during an Open Government Partnership event in New York in 2011
The scandal broke almost exactly a year after the shamed congressman suffered a public mauling for the same behaviour. Then, as recently, his wife Huma Abedin stood by him.
This time round Huma’s loyalty raised eyebrows and questions over why a woman of such accomplishment would stick by a man so apparently incapable of change.
Gennifer at her 1992 press conference, left, and pictured in Dallas in 2006, right, when she failed in her attempt to revive a defamation case against Hillary Clinton and two of her fomer aides
Gennifer said: ‘I don’t know Huma or the Weiners. I just know what Bill told me and that was that he was aware that Hillary was bisexual and he didn’t care. He should know.
‘He said Hillary had eaten more pussy than he had.’
Clinton in November 1992 and the two great loves against which Gennifer could never compete: Chelsea and Politics
Yet however much their roles as mistress and wife cast Gennifer and Hillary Clinton as natural rivals Gennifer claimed to feel a sense of solidarity with Hillary, 65, and would support Hillary’s candidacy for President.
She said: ‘The support I would give Hillary is as a woman. I’m one of those women who in so many aspects of my professional and personal life I’ve been out there making strides for women and allowing them to go down roads in which they were not welcome.
Closing ranks: Clinton is embraced by wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea following the final Presidential debate in October 1992
‘I would love to see a woman president.
'And she seems to be the only one that’s getting close to it.’
According to Gennifer, the promise of the Presidency for herself one day was what bound Hillary to her faithless husband across the years.
She said: ‘Absolutely that was her reason for sticking by him and he’s going to stick by her because he owes her that.
‘I would have thrown his clothes out on the front lawn but that’s just me.’
Reflecting on her affair with Clinton she said: ‘The whole experience changed my life forever and everything went in a different direction.
'I don’t regret telling the truth. It was a defining moment in American culture absolutely.’
The only difference now, she said, with advances in technology Clinton would have been unable to deny the affair as he did for several years.
She said: ‘I had recorded telephone conversations thank God. But if I hadn’t had them and Monica [Lewinsky] hadn’t had that blue dress we would have been cast out as crazy stalkers.
‘I think today Bill and I would have texted every opportunity we got. So I would have had tons of texts from him.’
She also believes that they would be together today were it not for the birth of his daughter, Chelsea, in 1980.
She said: 'for a long time he was able to have it all. Then when they had Cheslea and he became Governor the stakes became higher.'
Today Gennifer is single. She has been engaged ‘a couple of times’ since her divorce in 2005. She lives in New Orleans and sings regularly, though no longer owns the cabaret club where she used to perform nightly.
‘I love singing,’ she said. ‘It’s who I am. That’s who I am today I’ve had the opportunity as time has gone on to put things in their place in my head and move forward.
‘But,’ she admitted. ‘I’m still affected by it, the Clintons in some way every day and every day something happens that sparks a memory.
‘It was a defining moment in American culture absolutely and to an extent I paid a high price for my honesty.’
Republicans 'dead serious' about bringing Hillary Clinton back to face MORE grilling as they slam State Department over Benghazi
- A Republican aide says House investigators may 'have to climb the ladder and swear Hillary in' since underlings aren't providing answers
- 'We can certainly have Mrs. Clinton back,' House oversight chairman Darrell Issa said Wednesday
- As 2016 presidential race draws closer, the GOP will look for ways to embarrass their likely Democratic rival for the White House
- Sen. Rand Paul, another possible presidential hopeful, has said Clinton's Benghazi performance 'should preclude her from holding higher office'
- Republicans want to grill the former secretary of state on the editing of CIA talking points following the attack, and about who decided on the level of security the Libya facility should have
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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has testified multiple times in congressional hearings about Benghazi, but as a presidential run looms, Republicans are sharpening their knives for more Capitol Hill visits
Republicans are mulling whether to demand former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's return to Capitol Hill to face more tough questions about her agency's failure to protect diplomats and security staff in Benghazi, Libya a year ago.
An aide to a high-ranking GOP member of the House Oversight and Government Affairs committee told MailOnline that the committee's chairman, California Rep. Darrell Issa, 'is dead serious' about raking the likely 2016 presidential candidate over the coals in the future.
'Look, it's not like we're getting great answers from the deputies and under secretaries,' the staffer said on Wednesday. 'So eventually you have to climb the ladder and swear Hillary in again.'
'I'm not saying "The fish stinks from the head," or anything like that,' the aide cautioned. 'Just that the committee leaders on our side want answers and they're not going to let up.'
Issa told the Fox News Channel on Wednesday morning that his committee won't hesitate to bring back any of the senior-level witnesses who have already testified about the September 11, 2012 terror attack on American diplomatic facilities in the eastern Libya port city.
And that includes Hillary Clinton.
'We can certainly have Mrs. Clinton back,' Issa told Fox. 'We want to be respectful of her time, so getting to the facts – including people below her – first is critical.'
An oversight committee spokesperson declined to comment on the record about how likely it was that Issa could actually call Clinton as a witness again. But as the 2016 presidential election draws nearer, the knives may come out in earnest.
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS
Terrorists linked with al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. diplomatic compound and a nearby CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, killing four men including the U.S. ambassador
House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R) could choose to call Hillary Clinton back to face more grilling, over the likely objection of ranking Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings (L)
Clinton is widely seen as the Democratic Party's presidential standard-bearer going into the 2016 election. Embarrassing her as the presidential campaign season gets underway could be a devastating political chess move, but it's unclear how long Republicans will wait to pull the trigger if they decide to recall her as a witness.
GOP Sen. Rand Paul, another likely presidential contender, has already said that mishandling of Benghazi under Clinton's State Department leadership 'should preclude her from holding higher office.'
Paul said in August that he wasn't certain 'Clinton [was] telling the truth' about the nature of the CIA annex that also came under attack. He said he suspects it was involved with providing arms to Syrian rebels fighting the dictator Bashar al-Assad.
'The New York Times has also said the CIA has been involved with procuring arms to the Islamic rebels in Syria for over a year. What was the CIA annex doing there?' he said in August, referring to the Benghazi complex.
'I have asked specifically to have her brought back and I hope Chairman Issa will bring her back. She needs to testify under oat. Did she know about this and did it have anything to do with the misdirection campaign? And did she have anything to do with not allowing the Marines to go aid their wounded brothers there in Benghazi?'
If she were to come back to face more questions, a Capitol Hill staffer explained, Republicans would likely steer clear of Syria links and focus instead on any involvement Clinton had in approving the security arrangements for embassies and consulates in some of the world's most dangerous places.
Protesters gathered outside the National Constitution Center on Sept. 10 as Clinton received the Liberty Medal, given annually to an individual who 'displays courage and conviction while striving to secure liberty for people worldwide'
Republicans may relish the possibility of firing more tough questions at Clinton as she readies for a White House run, but such a strategy could backfire on the GOP and create powerful sound bites for Democrats
Republicans would also likely grill her about precisely when she learned what the U.S. intelligence community knew almost instantly – that terrorists, not Muslim protesters, set fires and fired mortars into the Benghazi compound and a nearby CIA annex.
Lastly, Republicans want to know whether Clinton had a personal hand in rewriting a series of CIA talking points that her agency softened significantly in the early, foggy post-Benghazi days.
Republicans, including Issa, have been intensely critical of Clinton, even before she began exploring a White House run, for what they perceive as her role in a cover-up during the weeks between the Benghazi attack and Barack Obama's 2012 presidential re-election.
U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was killed during the Benghazi attack, along with three other U.S. personnel
The intelligence community initially rendered a frank assessment that Benghazi was attacked by jihadi groups including the militant, al-Qaeda-linked Libyan organization Ansar al-Sharia.
But after State Department-led massaging, it became a weaker series of statements that protected the Obama administration while the president was campaigning for re-election by claiming that 'al-Qaeda is on the run.'
Then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice claimed days later in five broadcast interviews that the attack was the result of a spontaneous protest following the online publication of a crude American-made YouTube video that mocked the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Obama later promoted Rice to the position of national security adviser.
Clinton famously appeared in a Senate hearing on January 23, sparring with Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson about the State Department's evolving storyline as the dust settled on the terror attack.
'With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans,' Clinton lectured. 'Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans?'
'What difference at this point does it make?' she asked. 'It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.'
On Wednesday the House Foreign Affairs Commiittee heard from State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy, who approved a plan in December 2011 to outfit the Benghazi post with what turned out to be inadequate and substandard security protection.
After the attack, a formal review determined that no senior State officials were responsible.
'Turmoil,' not 'terror': News broadcasters followed Susan Rice's lead on Sept. 16, 2012 as she said during five separate interviews that the Benghazi attack was the product of a protest gone bad -- despite intelligence that showed otherwise from the beginning
Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy (L) faced aggressive questioning Wednesday from Rep. Ed Royce (R) over the State Department's failure to fire anyone following the terror attack in Libya
The final report, issued by an Accountability Review Board, also found Kennedy blameless, despite his signature on the 'action plan' that formalized the level of armed security details present in Benghazi.
Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ed Royce, a California Republican, asked Kennedy during Wednesday's hearing to explain why no State Department employees had been terminated after terrorists killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other U.S. personnel.
'No State Department personnel have been fired or even disciplined,' Royce barked. 'No one has missed a paycheck.'
Florida GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen later suggested that the State Department is engaging in a slow-roll cover-up by 'merely shuffl[ing] the deck chairs.'
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki parried reporters' challenges on Tuesday, insisting that she would not address 'internal deliberations' related to the Benghazi diplomatic station.
Kennedy said that four State Department officials, none of them at senior levels, were placed on administrative leave three months after the attack, and were since moved into positions that don't afford them 'worldwide decision-making authority for security.'
'Accountability includes being relieved of your job and assigned to other positions,' Kennedy insisted. 'To me, that is serious accountability.'
'Reassignment just doesn’t cut it,' Royce retorted.
Then-Secretary Clinton and President Obama both said early on that a protest -- not a terror attack -- was the root cause of the deaths and destruction in Libya
Devastation: The mortar, small-arms and firebomb attack left America's diplomatic station in ruins
Secretary of State John Kerry made news in August when he reinstated all four of those employees, following an internal determination that 'no employee breached their duty or should be fired' as a consequence of the Benghazi attack.
Kennedy also said that one reason U.S. law enforcement has yet to make arrests in the Benghazi case is that the Libyan government hasn't permitted it.
'Yes, they will let journalists in, but they are not letting U.S. law enforcement in to arrest people there,' Kennedy conceded, 'because the government of Libya is not in control to that degree.'
The under secretary has testified previously that he was not involved with day-to-day decisions related to the State Department's Benghazi compound. While the Accountability Review Board interviewed him at length, it allegedly never spoke with then-Secretary Clinton.
Before Wednesday's hearing, Republican oversight committee staff finalized a report alleging that the Board specifically aimed to protect political appointees at State while assigning responsibility for the terror-attack debacle to lower-level career civil servants.
Secretary of State John Kerry determined in August that all four employees who were placed on probation after the Benghazi attack could return to full-time duties in different jobs
On Thursday, Accountability Review Board co-chairs Admiral Mike Mullen and Thomas Pickering, a former diplomat, will testify before Issa's Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs.
Mark Sullivan, a former Secret Service director, will also testify. He headed an independent security panel that the Board asked to examine how some of America's most vulnerable overseas posts have been left with inadequate protection.
The House Armed Services Committee panel will hear testimony later in the day covering the U.S. military's level of preparedness to respond if Benghazi-style terror attacks become the norm in the future.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424645/Republicans-dead-bringing-Hillary-Clinton-BACK-face-grilling-slam-State-Department-Benghazi.html#ixzz2fIukJ4ND
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