Consig, as far as admissibility in court, I agree that this is not only useless but a good attorney could easily flip the script with it. In the court of public opinion, however, it seems pretty damning to me. To start with, how would this woman know any of these things? It's clearly not some manufactured ruse. Something happened. I can appreciate that her memory may not align with his, for various reasons. She may have perceived what he did as attempted rape. Whereas in the moment he never perceived it that way. And clearly this woman was also subject to quite a lot of other abuse which has maybe warped her perspective on all this a bit. It's also reasonable to interpret that there have been so many women he just doesn't remember. His words very much give that impression.
For me the takeaway though is this.
One, that this man was serially abusing women, even if just in the sense that he leveraged his position to lure them into inappropriate sexual situations where consent becomes dubious. And he did so while serving as MTC president and in other high ranking roles.
Two, other leaders clearly knew. Bishop claims to have confessed to them, the woman interviewing claims to have multiple times reported things to leaders herself, and so on. They swept it under the rug. Documents to prove it in court, no, but not like that's a matter which would be subject to court to begin with. This should be a public matter for the LDS community to be made aware of, leadership malfeasance.
Three, even more substantial, this incident would seem to surpass Mark Hoffman in terms of of significance and the implications for inspired church leadership.
As recently as 2017 Elder Eyring said the following in conference.Elder Eyring wrote:For instance, it takes faith to believe that the resurrected Lord is watching over the daily details of His kingdom. It takes faith to believe that He calls imperfect people into positions of trust. It takes faith to believe that He knows the people He calls perfectly, both their capacities and their potential, and so makes no mistakes in His calls.
I remember Hallstrom saying this at once of the last conferences I watched.the voices of the Lord’s servants, which are the same as the Lord’s own voice
I'm preaching to the choir. There are countless examples of this. The leadership claims Christ literally directs the affairs of the church. Mistakes of this sort cannot be made. So, either they're full of crap, and mistakes are made, or Christ wanted this man to abuse women at the MTC.
Mission calls in particular are hyped up, one of the few callings that apostles are directly involved with. They choose where the kid should serve. Adds to the aura of it all. You've got the freaking MTC president, of all people, abusing sisters right there in Provo? Gee willikers. I'm honestly not sure it could get much worse than that. The only thing worse would be a sex scandal involving the president of the church. Or a murder scandal. The MTC president! Who members entrust their kids with.