The Duggar scandal just won’t go away and, in fact, has only become worse since Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar granted what they may have hoped was an air-clearing interview to Fox News that aired Wednesday. But the 19 Kids And Counting couple’s apparent excuses for the child sex abuse committed by their son Josh brought an overall highly negative reception for that interview.
Now the scandal for the Duggars could be taking an even more serious turn, as new analysis now reveals that the Duggars may have lied repeatedly in that interview with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, making several statements that fail to line up details in police reports.
The magazine In Touch Weekly , which broke the story of the Josh Duggar child molestation incidents and obtained key documents under the Freedom of Information Act, noted on Thursday that while the Duggar parents told Fox News that they completely cooperated with the police investigation of the sex abuse cases, police reports show the opposite .
“Jim Bob refused to produce Josh for a police-requested interview and stopped cooperating with the probe,” in December of 2006, telling Springdale, Arkansas, police that he had hired a lawyer and would not, himself, grant an interview to police, the magazine reported.
The political site Talking Points Memo also uncovered other apparent lies by the Duggar parents.
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar told Fox that their daughters, who were the victims of the inappropriate sexual touching by the then-teenage Josh Duggar, did not even know what had happened because Josh had molested them when they were asleep.
But in 2006, Jim Bob Duggar (referred to as “James” in the police documents) himself told police that at least one of the girls woke up while her older brother “was taking her blanket away,” TPM pointed out.
In addition, one victim told police in 2006 that Josh was reading to her when he pulled down her pants and touched her in a way that “felt weird,” indicating that at least one victim was aware of what was going on and knew that it was wrong.
According to earlier reports, Josh molested his then-5-year-old sister while he was reading to her.
As Talking Points Memo noted, Michelle Duggar told Fox News that the Duggar children “shared everything” with police and “poured out their hearts.” But she made one crucial omission. While it is true that most of the Duggar children were interviewed by investigators at the time, one was not — because the Duggars themselves refused to allow it.
The one child held back from police by the Duggars was Josh Duggar, the accused molester in the Duggar child abuse scandal.
[Image: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images]