Jessa Duggar And Jill Duggar Were Josh Duggar’s Victims, Defended Him During Megyn Kelly Interview [Video]

Jessa Duggar and Jill Duggar recently confirmed that they were sexually molested by their older brother, Josh Duggar, and the 19 Kids and Counting stars agreed to talk to The Kelly File host Megyn Kelly in an interview that will air on the Fox News Channel this Friday.

The first half of the Duggar family’s interview with Megyn Kelly aired Wednesday night during The Kelly File, and Megyn chatted with Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar about their son’s admission that he sexually molested Jessa Duggar, Jill Duggar, and two other sisters when he was a teenager. The parents tried to play down Josh’s multiple instances of molestation by saying that many of them, but not all of them, involved Josh groping his victims over their clothing while they were asleep and unaware of what was happening to them.

“This was not rape or anything like that,” Jim Bob said.

Much of the Duggars’ interview was a defense of Josh, and they also complained the release of Josh Duggar’s police report and the media coverage of what it revealed about their family. Instead of becoming advocates for victims of sexual abuse, the Duggars revealed that they want to help young men like Josh by advocating for the protection of juvenile police records.

Judging from what Jessa Duggar said during her interview with Megyn Kelly, it sounds like she shares her parents’ views about Josh Duggar — she also believes that her brother is being unfairly treated. According to the Daily Mail, Jessa Duggar actually defended her brother by saying that people are “lying” when they call him a child molester.

“I do want to speak up in his defense against people who are calling him a child molester or a pedophile or a rapist, some people are saying. I’m like that is so overboard and a lie really, I mean people get mad at me for saying that but I can say this because I was one of the victims.”

Michelle Duggar was also questioned about the child molester label during her interview with Megyn Kelly. Megyn specifically asked Michelle about her previous comments comparing transgender women to child molesters and the reaction to them — as the Inquisitr previously reported, many people labeled Michelle Duggar a hypocrite after it was discovered that her own son was molesting his sisters. Unfortunately, Jim Bob Duggar jumped in to offer the definition of the word “pedophile” as a response to Megyn’s child molester question. According to Jim Bob, Josh can’t be considered a pedophile because he was under age 16 when he started molesting his younger sisters. According to In Touch Weekly, Josh Duggar was 15-years-old when he fondled his then-5-year-old sister.

In a preview of Jessa Duggar and Jill Duggar’s interview, Jill is shown crying.

“People don’t have a right to do this,” she says. “This isn’t — we’re victims. They can’t do this to us.”

“The system was set up to protect kids,” Jessa Duggar adds. “Both those who make stupid mistakes or have problems like this in their life, and the ones that are affected by those choices. It’s greatly failed.”

Unfortunately for the Duggar daughters, their father failed to use the system properly. Jim Bob Duggar told Megyn Kelly that parents “aren’t mandatory reporters,” so he and Michelle chose to deal with Josh’s behavior on their own when they first learned about it. However, things only got worse — Josh started molesting his sisters while they were awake, and his victim count grew to include his youngest sister.

You can check out the preview of the Jessa and Jill’s interview below.

The rest of Jessa Duggar and Jill Duggar’s interview will air Friday night at 9 p.m. on the Fox News Channel.

[Image credit: TLC via 19 Kids and Counting Facebook page]