As two more women came forward on Friday and accused him of sexual misconduct, Donald Trump went on the offence, rejecting the claims as “lies, lies, lies” and blaming it all on his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and the “dishonest” liberal media.
“I am a victim of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country,” he said at rallies in North Carolina, suggesting that the accusers may be doing it for fame, political reasons or money. “This whole election is being rigged,” he charged.
Trump’s counter-punch came on a day when Summer Zervos, a former contestant of “The Apprentice” reality TV show, and Kristin Anderson, a photographer, provided graphic accounts of the billionaire businessman’s alleged sexual assaults — in 2007 and early 1990s respectively.
These accusations have come on top of the allegations of groping and kissing made by four other women on Friday.
“It’s a lie, total lie, it’s fabrication. Sometimes they do it for fame, maybe they get money, who knowsIJ The Clinton campaign is pushing it,” Trump thundered at rallies in Greensboro and Charlotte.
“It’s a total set-up. Now suddenly after many, many years, phony accusers come out less than a month before one of the most important elections in the history of our country,” he said, asserting: “I don’t know who these people are. I look on television, I think it’s a disgusting thing and it’s being pushed, they have no witnesses, there’s nobody around.”
Zervos, now 41, said Trump first kissed her on the lips when she arrived at his office in New York in 2007 to request for a job. She alleged that when they met at a hotel in los Angeles a few weeks later, Trump made inappropriate sexual advances, saying that he “grabbed my shoulder and began kissing again very aggressively, and placed his hand on my breast”.
“He put me into an embrace and I tried to pull him away. I pushed his chest to put some space between us and said ‘Come on, man, get real’,” she said.
Specifically addressing Zervos’ account, Trump said while he “vaguely” remembers as one of the many contestants on “The Apprentice” over the years, he had never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately.
“Hillary Clinton can spend all of her time and money pushing complete lies against our campaign, but I refuse to fall victim to this vicious cycle of personal attacks,” Trump said in a statement.
The Trump Campaign also released a separate statement from Zervos’ cousin, John Barry, saying he was “completely shocked and bewildered” by her claims since “she has had nothing but glowing things to say about Mr Trump” since her participation in the fifth season of “The Apprentice” in 2006.
Suggesting that Zervos’ turnabout might have happened after Trump declined her invitation to visit her restaurant in April this year during the primaries, Barry said: “I can only imagine that Summer’s actions today are nothing more than an attempt to regain the spotlight at Mr. Trump’s expense, and I don’t think it reflects well.”
Anderson, the other accuser to come forward on Friday, told The Washington Post that Trump put his hand up her skirt and “touched her vagina through her underwear” at the China Club in New York in the early 1990s. It happened when she was on a couch talking to friends, Anderson said, adding she shoved the hand away and fled. While doing so, she took a good look at the man responsible, and she “recognized him as Donald Trump”.
There was no specific response from Trump or his campaign to Anderson’s accusation, who said she was in her twenties at the time and was aspiring to be a model. Anderson, now 46, works as a photographer and lives in southern California.