Pres. Obama: There Is No Way To Revoke Bill Cosby's Medal of Freedom

At a press conference on July 15, President Barack Obama was asked about his opinion regarding whether Bill Cosby’s Presidential Medal of Freedom should be revoked following his admission that he drugged and sexually assaulted dozens of women. In his response, Obama managed to get his opinion across without explicitly commenting on the situation.

“There’s no precedent for revoking a medal. We don’t have that mechanism,” he said. “And as you know, I tend to make it a policy not to comment on the specifics of cases where there might still be if not criminal, then civil issues involved. 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.”

Cosby was awarded the medal in 2002 by President George W. Bush. However, now, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Claire McCaskill are publicly supporting a petition calling for the White House to revoke the highest civilian honor. As of the writing of this article, the petition had just over 10,000 signatures.