President Barack Obama personally commented on Bill Cosby rape case in a press conference on Wednesday. The nation's chief executive said that comedian Bill Cosby appears guilty of sexual crimes.
In the highly visible setting of a press conference, President Obama was confronted with a question connected with Bill Cosby's rape case. He was asked if, given new information about the Cosby case, the White House might revoke Cosby's 2002 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
It was a life altering moment for the once adored Cosby 77, who is accused by 20 women who drugged and sexually assaulted them. He had denied all allegations in the past and was never charged criminally for such crimes.
In 2005, Cosby admitted that he obtained Quaalude, a brand-name for Methaqualone which is a depressant or a downer. It is with the intention of giving them to young women with whom he wanted to have sex, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press last week. It was unclear from the documents whether the women had consented to being drugged.
The accusations against Cosby resurfaced in October 2014. It was after a video of comedian Hannibal Buress speaking about it during a standup show went viral. A month later, Cosby refused to respond to questions about the allegations. Several women then have come forward and said that Cosby drugged and raped them decades ago.
In response to the query, Mr. Obama said there was no precedent or mechanism for revoking the Medal of Freedom. And he said he made it a general policy to not comment on the specifics of cases still in the courts. But he went ahead and commented anyway, in a general but finely oblique way.
The President said: "I'll say this. If you give a woman, or a man for that matter, without his or her knowledge, a drug and then have sex with that person without consent, that's rape, and I think this country, any civilized country, should have no tolerance for rape."
The group PAVE had started a petition calling on Obama to revoke the medal. Angela Rose, executive director of anti-sexual assault group said in a statement that Obama had effectively called Cosby a rapist in his comments. The petition had earned over 10,000 signatures by Wednesday afternoon.
US President Barack Obama has given a statement regarding the rape case of Bill Cosby. He condemned drugs and rape saying that any civilized country should have no tolerance for it.
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