Prior allegations of sexual misconduct by Bill Clinton, husband to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, have come up multiple times during the campaign season as a counterpoint to similar allegations made against Melania Trump's husband, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
"If they bring up my past, why not?" Melania Trump said during an interview this week with Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt. "They're asking for it."
Speaking with Earhardt, Melania Trump accused the Clintons of disseminating racy photos from her modeling career. Hillary Clinton's campaign "started from the beginning of the campaign putting my picture from modeling days (up)," she claimed.
The New York Post in August published racy photos of Trump from when she first came to America in the 1990s, spurring questions of whether she came to the country legally. Trump grew up in Slovenia.
There is no evidence the Clinton campaign had a hand in getting the images published. Trump has denied illegally entering the country.
>> Related: Melania Trump releases letter from attorney, says she '100 percent' entered country legally
"They want to hurt my reputation," she told Earhardt. "I will not allow that."
Still, Trump accused the media of working with Clinton's campaign.
"I see it's like a Clinton machine behind it," she told Earhardt. "And they are playing politically correct games and they have perfected it very well."
Trump spoke with Earhardt and CNN's Anderson Cooper this week, marking her first public addresses in months and the first since allegations of sexual misconduct were levied against her husband, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
"His life was an open book," she told Earhardt. "A lot of people know about it. My husband, he's raw and he's real. And he tells it as it is. He doesn't want to brush it off under the rug, the stuff that -- that he would just say. Everything is perfect, because it's not. Let's look at the reality, what's really going on in the United States."
About the Author