UPDATE 10/27, 8:35 p.m. ET: Former Miss Finland Ninni Laaksonen claimed to a Finnish newspaper on Thursday, October 27, that Donald Trump grabbed her butt before an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman 10 years ago. The former beauty queen, now 30, alleged that the Republican presidential nominee groped her as they posed for a picture together.
“Trump stood right next to me and suddenly he squeezed my butt,” she claimed, per The Telegraph’s translation. “He really grabbed my butt. I don’t think anybody saw it, but I flinched and thought, ‘What is happening?'”
UPDATE 10/22, 6:15 p.m. ET: Yoga instructor Karena Virginia claimed that Donald Trump grabbed her right arm and touched the inside of her breast during a 1998 encounter at the U.S. Open. Joined by civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred at a New York press conference on Thursday, October 20, Virginia claimed that she was waiting inside a car when the businessman groped her and said, “Don’t you know who I am?”
Two days later, adult film actress Jessica Drake also held a press conference with Allred in Los Angeles. Drake, who is the 11th woman to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct, claimed she met the reality TV star at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006. He allegedly invited her back to his room, and she went accompanied by two of her female friends, where she said he “grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each one of us without asking permission.” Drake left the penthouse suite and returned to her bedroom, where she says she received a call “from either Donald, or a male calling on his behalf, offering me $10,000” to spend the night together. “This is not acceptable behavior for anyone, much less a presidential candidate,” she said during Saturday afternoon’s press conference.
Trump responded to Drake’s claims during a Monday, October 24, interview with WGIR radio’s New Hampshire Today.
“These are stories that are made up, these are total fiction. You’ll find out that, in the years to come, these women that stood up, it was all fiction,” the Republican presidential nominee, 70, said. “They were made up. I don’t know these women, it’s not my thing to do what they say. You know I don’t do that. I don’t grab them, as they say, on the arm.”
Speaking specifically to Drake’s allegations, Trump — who is running against Democrat Hillary Clinton — continued, “One said, ‘He grabbed me on the arm.’ And she’s a porn star. You know, this one that came out recently, ‘He grabbed me and he grabbed me on the arm.’”
The real estate tycoon turned politician then sarcastically added: “Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.”
UPDATE 10/16, 2:30 p.m. ET: A new woman has joined the chorus of voices claiming that Donald Trump forcefully kissed and groped them without their consent. Cathy Heller of New York told The Guardian in an interview published on Sunday, October 16, that in 1997, she and her family were at a Mother’s Day brunch at the real estate mogul’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida when Trump allegedly touched her inappropriately. According to Heller, 63, the businessman was making his rounds greeting members of the club when he stopped at their table.
“He took my hand, and grabbed me, and went for the lips,” she claimed. Heller added that when she instinctually leaned backwards to dodge the kiss, Trump became aggravated. “And he said, ‘Oh, come on.’ He was strong. And he grabbed me and went for my mouth and went for my lips. … And then he just walked away.”
Heller said she was “angry and shaken” and he was “pissed.” “He couldn’t believe a woman would pass up the opportunity” to kiss him, she said, adding that the Republican presidential nominee seemed to feel “entitled” to kiss her. A rep for the GOP hopeful denied the claims, telling The Guardian, “There is no way that something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother’s Day at Mr. Trump’s resort. It would have been the talk of Palm Beach for the past two decades.”
UPDATE 10/14, 8:30 p.m. ET: Season 5 Apprentice alum Summer Zervos claimed during a press conference on Friday, October 14, that Donald Trump once thrust his genitals at her during a business meeting. The former contestant told reporters that she was meeting with the Republican presidential nominee in 2007 at his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel when he allegedly kissed her “open-mouthed,” put a hand on her breast and thrust his genitals against her.
Trump denied that the events Zervos detailed ever happened.
UPDATE, 3:30 p.m. ET: During a Thursday, October 13, speech in West Palm Beach, Florida, Donald Trump denied that he sexually assaulted women who have recently accused him of doing so.
“These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false,” he told the crowd. “These claims are fabricated. They’re pure fiction, and they’re outright lies. These events never, ever happened.” He also called the women making the accusations “horrible, horrible liars.”
As previously reported, The New York Times published several articles in which women claimed that the Republican presidential nominee, 70, treated them inappropriately. In response, Trump’s legal team sent a letter to the newspaper threatening a lawsuit if they did not issue a retraction. The New York Times VP and assistant general counsel David McGraw wrote a defiant rebuttal to Trump attorney Marc E. Kasowitz, letting him know that the publication declines to acquiesce to the real estate mogul’s demands.
“Dear Mr. Kasowitz,” the letter begins. “I write in response to your letter of October 12, 2016 to Dean Banquet concerning your client Donald Trump, the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. You write concerning our article ’Two Women Say Donald Trump Touched Them Inappropriately’ and label the article as ‘libel per se.’ You ask that we ‘remove it from [our] website, and issue a full and immediate retraction and apology.’ We decline to do so.”
McGraw continued: “The essence of a libel claim, of course, is the protection of one’s reputation,” he continues. “Mr. Trump has bragged about his non-consensual sexual touching of women. He has ragged about intruding on beauty pageant contestants in their dressing rooms. He acquiesced to a radio host’s request to discuss Mr. Trump’s own daughter as a ‘piece of ass.’ Multiple women not mentioned in our article have publicly come forward to report on Mr. Trump’s unwanted advances. Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself.”
Original story below:
Many women have accused Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of sexual misconduct following the recent leak of a 2005 Access Hollywood video, in which he makes misogynistic comments and brags about sexually assaulting women.
In the controversial clip — released by The Washington Post on Friday, October 7 — the ex–Celebrity Apprentice host, 70, boasts to former Access Hollywood anchor Billy Bush that he once tried to “f–k” a married woman (later to be identified as Nancy O’Dell) and even said that his star power gives him the ability to do as he pleases with women — kissing them without permission and even grabbing them “by the p–sy.” (Trump dismissed his remarks as “locker-room talk” and issued an apology in a Twitter video.)
As Election Day draws near, more women are coming forward and sharing their stories about Trump’s unwarranted advances. Here is a comprehensive list of all the women who have accused the POTUS hopeful of treating them inappropriately — and how Trump and/or his campaign has responded.
Jessica Leeds: 1980s
In an October 2016 story, Leeds alleged to The New York Times that Trump groped her shortly after they met on an airplane in the ’80s. She told the newspaper that 45 minutes into the flight, the business mogul lifted the armrest separating them and began to touch her. Leeds said that Trump grabbed her breasts and attempted to put his hand up her skirt. “He was like an octopus,” she recounted. “His hands were everywhere.”
In response, Trump’s campaign threatened to sue The New York Times for the story. When a reporter called to ask for comment, he reportedly told her she was a “disgusting human being” and said, “None of this ever took place. I don’t do it. I don’t do it. It was locker-room talk.”
In a lengthier statement, Trump’s campaign wrote: “This entire article is fiction, and for the New York Times to launch a completely false, coordinated character assassination against Mr. Trump on a topic like this is dangerous. To reach back decades in an attempt to smear Mr. Trump trivializes sexual assault, and it sets a new low for where the media is willing to go in its efforts to determine this election.”
Ivana Trump: 1989
Trump’s first wife, Ivana, whom he was married to from 1977 until 1991, alleged in a 1989 deposition that she had been raped by her spouse. Though she made the claim while under oath in court, the former fashion model, now 67, backtracked on her claim.
“During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me,” she clarified in a statement cited in the 1993 book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump. “I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”
Jill Harth: 1990s
Harth — a former business associate of Trump’s — sued the real estate tycoon in the mid-’90s, alleging that he groped her on multiple occasions during business meetings with her and her now-ex-husband. “Basically he name-dropped throughout that dinner, when he wasn’t groping me under the table,” she testified during a 1996 deposition. “Let me just say, this was a very traumatic thing working for him.”
After Harth recounted her experiences during an October 2016 episode of Inside Edition, Trump responded by releasing recent emails from the freelance makeup artist congratulating him on his campaign. He also claimed that she was after him romantically.
Kristin Anderson: 1990s
In an October 2016 interview with The Washington Post, Anderson accused Trump of putting his hand up her skirt and touching her inappropriately in the ’90s. Anderson, a former aspiring model who lived in New York City during her early twenties, detailed the alleged events of that night nearly two decades ago.
“I was at a club with my friends, and I’m talking to my friend who [is sitting] on my left side. I’m very clear on this,” she told the newspaper. “This is the vivid part for me. So the person on my right, who unbeknownst to me at that time, was Donald Trump, put their hand up my skirt.”
“He did touch my vagina through my underwear. Absolutely,” Anderson confirmed. “And as I pushed the hand away, and I got up, and I turned around, and I see these eyebrows, very distinct eyebrows of Donald Trump. And I got up and I moved and I continued to talk with my friends.”
“Mr. Trump strongly denies this phony allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity. It is totally ridiculous,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an emailed statement to The Washington Post.
Jane Doe: 1994
An anonymous woman filed a lawsuit in October 2016 accusing Trump of raping a 13-year-old girl in New York City in 1994 at the home of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s campaign adviser Roger Stone said that the lawsuit is nothing more than a hoax and likely part of a “smear campaign.”
Temple Taggart: 1997
In May 2016, Taggart — a former Miss Utah — told The New York Times that Trump (who once had partial ownership of the Miss USA organization) assaulted her when she was competing in the 1997 pageant when she was just 21 years old. “He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, gross,’” she told the publication. “He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s inappropriate.’”
Trump has yet to respond to Taggart’s allegations.
Mindy McGillivray: 2003
In October 2016, model McGillivray told the Palm Beach Post that Trump groped her during a 2003 photo shoot at his landmark Florida estate Mar-a-Lago. She claimed that he “grabbed [her] ass.” McGillivray elaborated: “This was a pretty good nudge. More of a grab. It was pretty close to the center of my butt. I was startled. I jumped.”
In response, Trump’s press secretary, Hope Hicks, said, “There is no truth to this whatsoever. This allegation lacks any merit or veracity.”
Rachel Crooks: 2005
Crooks — who used to work for Bayrock Group, a business located inside Manhattan’s Trump Tower — told The New York Times in October 2016 that she met Trump on an elevator in 2005. She said that he did not return her handshake, but instead began kissing her. “[He] kissed me directly on the mouth,” she recalled. “People should know this behavior is pervasive, and it is real.”
When the newspaper reached out to Trump for comment, he offered the same explanation he provided for its story about Leeds (and uttered the same “locker-room” phrasing he employed to address the Access Hollywood tape): “None of this ever took place. I don’t do it. I don’t do it. It was locker-room talk.”
Natasha Stoynoff: 2005
Stoynoff, a former People magazine writer who was assigned to cover Trump and his family in the mid-2000s, penned an October 2016 piece for the outlet in which she alleged that he forced himself on her during a 2005 photo shoot at Mar-a-Lago. “We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat,” she wrote.
According to Stoynoff, Trump told her: “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you? … Have you ever been to Peter Luger’s for steaks? I’ll take you. We’re going to have an affair, I’m telling you.”
Trump responded to Stoynoff’s story via Twitter: “Why didn’t the writer of the twelve year old article in People Magazine mention the ‘incident’ in her story. Because it did not happen!”
Cassandra Searles: 2013
Searles — who reigned as Miss Washington in 2013 — alleged in a June 2016 Facebook post that Trump made her feel like “property” during the Miss USA pageant.
“Do y’all remember that one time we had to do our onstage introductions, but this one guy treated us like cattle and made us do it again because we didn’t look him in the eyes? Do you also remember when he then proceeded to have us lined up so he could get a closer look at his property?” she wrote. “Oh I forgot to mention that guy will be in the running to become the next President of the United States. I love the idea of having a misogynist as the President. #HeWillProbablySueMe #iHaveWorseStoriesSoComeAtMeBro#Drumpf.”
In a subsequent (and deleted) comment, she reportedly wrote: “He probably doesn’t want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room.”
Trump has not responded to Searles’ allegations.
