Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Hillary Clinton has spoken out for the first time in response to the criticism she has faced for representing a man in 1975 accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. She defended herself in an interview on British website Mumsnet, saying she tried to be removed from the case. “I asked to be relieved of that responsibility, but I was not, and I had a professional duty to represent my client to the best of my ability, which I did,” she said. At the time, Clinton was 27 and working for University of Arkansas’s legal-aid clinic in Fayetteville. Her client, Thomas Alfred Taylor, could have faced life in prison, but she negotiated a plea deal of just one year in prison with four years of probation. In an interview last month with The Daily Beast, the victim, who is now 52, said “Hillary Clinton took me through hell.”