A deluge of sexual-misconduct allegations hit Donald Trump on Wednesday as five women came forward with claims that he groped, kissed or leered at them. The accusations came just days after the Republican candidate denied at Sunday’s presidential debate that he had ever groped anyone inappropriately.
Two women told The New York Times that Trump abused them. “He was like an octopus,” Jessica Leeds said. “His hands were everywhere.”
Leeds, now 74, said she was sitting in first class on a flight three decades ago when Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt.
In a separate allegation, Rachel Crooks told the Times she was 22 years old and working at Trump Tower in 2005 when she shook hands with him, but he would not let go and then started to kiss her “directly on the mouth.”
“I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that,” she said. When confronted with the claims Wednesday, Trump threatened to sue the Times.
“You are a disgusting human being,” Trump said to the reporter who asked him for his reaction. “None of this ever took place.”
Trump’s lawyers also released a letter addressed to the Times late Wednesday that demanded they “cease further publication” of the article. But more allegations came Wednesday night.
People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff posted a long first-person account about a December 2005 encounter with Trump while she was writing a Christmas feature on him and his then-pregnant wife, Melania, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
Stoynoff said that after Melania left them, Trump took her to a room, pressed her against a wall and forced “his tongue down my throat.”
She wrote that she was stunned, but tried to continue the interview with Trump’s butler present. Then, when the butler left, Trump allegedly told her, “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?”
“He also referenced the infamous cover of the New York Post during his affair with Marla Maples. ‘You remember,’ he said. ‘Best Sex I Ever Had,’ ” Stoynoff wrote.
In yet another claim, Mindy McGillivray, 36, told the Palm Beach Post that Trump groped her at Mar-a-Lago 13 years ago.
She said she was backstage at a Ray Charles concert when Trump grabbed her butt. He denied the claim to the Palm Beach Post and also threatened to sue that paper.
Also Wednesday, former Miss Washington Cassandra Searles claimed in a Facebook post that Trump groped her, according to Rolling Stone magazine.
“He probably doesn’t want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my *** and invited me to his hotel room,” Searles wrote.
