begin quote from:
Greensboro, North Carolina (CNN)Another woman is accusing Donald Trump this …
2 additional women accuse Trump of sexual assault
Story highlights
- Kristin Anderson and Summer Zervos told their accounts separately
- Sexual assault allegations have rocked Trump's presidential campaign
Greensboro, North Carolina (CNN)WARNING: This story contains graphic language.
Two
additional women on Friday stepped forward to accuse Donald Trump of
sexually assaulting them, the latest revelations to rock the GOP
nominee's campaign.
One
woman alleged that Trump slid his fingers under her skirt and touched
her vagina through her underwear in the early 1990s. Another, a former
"Apprentice" contestant, said Trump grabbed her breast and kissed her
aggressively in 2007.
Kristin Anderson and Summer Zervos told their accounts separately.
Anderson,
now a 46-year-old photographer living in California, told The
Washington Post in an interview published Friday that she was sitting
with friends at a Manhattan nightclub in the early 1990s when suddenly a
man put his hand up her skirt. Moments afterwards, she said she
recognized the man to be Trump. The two had not spoken or met before the
incident occurred, Anderson said.
At the time, Anderson was an aspiring model.
Zervos
claims Trump kissed her twice on the lips during a lunch meeting in his
New York City office. On a separate occasion in Beverly Hills, she
alleges he kissed her aggressively and touched her breast.
She later pursued a job within the Trump Organization and says Trump asked her to stop calling him.
The
former "Apprentice" contestant shared her story in a press conference
that was organized by her lawyer Gloria Allred, a women's rights
attorney and activist who has represented other women in high-profile
sexual assault cases.
CNN has not
yet independently verified Anderson or Zervos' accounts. Trump
spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement Anderson's account is a
"total fabrication."
"It is
illogical and nonsensical to think Donald Trump was alone in a nightclub
in Manhattan and that the alleged incident and recognition of Mr. Trump
went unnoticed by both the woman involved and anyone else in this
'crowded' venue."
Hicks also questioned the timing of Anderson's allegations.
"Further,
why is this just coming out now? She described the allegation as being
'inconsequential at the time,' but why then wasn't it consequential when
Mr. Trump announced for President, or when he won the primary, or when
he headlined the convention -- why is it just now, three weeks before
election day, consequential? The answer is that this is clearly a
political attack designed to tear down Mr. Trump."
Trump
disputed Anderson's claim at a rally on Friday, calling her account
"nonsense" and "false," arguing that he rarely sits alone, even though
Anderson never claimed Trump was sitting alone at the time of the
incident.
"I was sitting alone by myself and then I went wah to somebody," Trump said, motioning to his side as he attempted to re-enact Anderson's account of his behavior.
Trump later responded to Zervos in a statement Friday, saying he "vaguely" remembered her.
"When
Gloria Allred is given the same weighting on national television as the
president of the United States, and unfounded accusations are treated
as fact, with reporters throwing due diligence and fact-finding to the
side in a rush to file their stories first, it's evident that we truly
are living in a broken system," Trump said.
The
denial of Anderson's claim is similar to ones the Trump campaign has
offered this week as other women have come forward this week to accuse
Trump of kissing or groping them without their consent. CNN has not
independently verified any of these allegations.
The
allegations, which have rocked Trump's presidential campaign, emerged
days after audio of a lewd conversation in which Trump bragged in 2005
about kissing and groping women surfaced last Friday. Trump apologized
for the words, but insisted in the second presidential debate Sunday
that he never sexually assaulted women in the way he boasted about on
tape in 2005.
The women who have
leveled allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump this week have
all said the publication of the 2005 tape and Trump's denial in Sunday's
debate prompted them to come forward.
"When
I heard the tape of the bus where he is describing how he is a star and
he can just pretty much do whatever he wants and they let him and, you
know, he can 'grab them by the pussy ... I was just like 'wow, wow, that
explains it. That explains what happened to me,'" Anderson told the
Post.
Anderson's allegation is
similar to the story of Jessica Leeds, who told CNN's Anderson Cooper --
as well as The New York Times in a story published Wednesday -- that
Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt during a
flight in the early 1980s.
Zervos
said Trump "grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again very
aggressively and placed his hand on my breast" during an encounter in
Beverly Hills, when she met with him in 2007.
'Apprentice' star: Trump treated me like an object 00:49
She
continued, "I pulled back and walked to another part of the room. He
then walked up, grabbed my hand, and then walked me into the bedroom. I
walked out. He then turned me around and said, 'Let's lay down and watch
some telly telly.' He put me in an embrace and I tried to push him
away. I pushed his chest to put space between us. I said, 'Come on man
get real' ... He repeated my words back to me, 'Get real,' as he began
thrusting his genitals."
She was a
former contestant of season 5 of "The Apprentice" and continued to see
Trump as a "possible mentor" after she was "fired" from the show.
Trump denied these claims in his statement and said Zervos had contacted him as recently as April.
"To
be clear, I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a
decade ago. That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I've
conducted my life. In fact, Ms. Zervos continued to contact me for help,
emailing my office on April 14th of this year asking that I visit her
restaurant in California," Trump said.
The
news conference was the first time Zervos has spoken to the press about
her allegations against Trump. Allred said that she's been contacted by
more women accusing Trump of sexual advances.
"Many more women have contacted me. Will they be coming forward? I can't answer this question at this time," Allred said.
A
People Magazine reporter wrote a story alleging Trump began kissing her
without her consent in 2005 when the two were alone for an interview at
his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. She was reporting an article on his
one-year wedding anniversary to his wife, Melania.
Trump
has forcefully denied all of these allegations and has argued that they
are part of a conspiratorial effort to sink his campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment