Trump Sexual Assault Accuser Going Ahead With Lawsuit
ELECTION 2016
One of the 13 women who alleged Trump assaulted them will seek a legal remedy.
By Kali Holloway / AlterNet
January 17, 2017
One of the 13 women who accused Donald Trump of sexual abuse will pursue the case through legal channels, according to attorney Gloria Allred. The Daily Beast reports that Allred told the outlet that she will be filing papers against Trump in court today on behalf of her client. She also announced that she will hold a press conference about the case Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. ET / 11:30 a.m. PT to answer questions about the litigation.
Charges of rape and sexual harassment dating back four decades dogged Trump in the months leading up to the election. Last year, a woman filed a lawsuit against the then-GOP presidential candidate alleging he violently raped her when she was 13 years old. Another woman, Jessica Leeds, said Trump fondled her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt on a flight in the 1980s. “He was like an octopus. His hands were everywhere,” she told the New York Times in October last year. “It was an assault.”
Trump’s ex-wife Ivana was perhaps the first woman to publicly accuse Trump of sexual assault. The charge was made during a deposition in the Trumps early 1990s divorce. Before the release of Lost Tyc00n, a Trump biography that made mention of Ivana’s testimony, Donald Trump’s lawyers sent author Harry Hunt III a letter on Ivana’s behalf recanting those accusations:
“During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me. [O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”
Trump’s response to mounting allegations of sexual abuse and harassment—most of which emerged after a leaked 2005 video showed him bragging about grabbing women “by the p*ssy”—was that his accusers weren’t hot enough to be merit sexual assault. In response to People magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff’s recounting of Trump pushing her against a wall and “forcing his tongue down [her] throat,” Trump told a rally crowd, "Take a look! You take a look. Look at her. Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don't think so. I don't think so."
In October, Trump also said he would sue all of his accusers after November 8. "All of these liars will be sued after the election is over,” he said during a Pennsylvania campaign speech. Those lawsuits have failed to materialize.
Kali Holloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and culture at AlterNet.
