Donald Trump

Trump Attacks ‘Sick Media' as More Accusers Emerge

This week, at least six women have told publications detailed stories about encounters with Trump that ended with groping, kissing and other unwanted sexual advances

Donald Trump on Saturday continued to attack Hillary Clinton's campaign and the media for fabricating allegations that he sexually assaulted women, but he offered no evidence the accusers fabricated their stories. 

"This election is being rigged by the media pushing false and unsubstantiated charges, and outright lies in order to elect Crooked Hillary!" he tweeted early Saturday, echoing remarks he made at North Carolina rally on Friday.

"Our media is indeed sick and it's making our country sick. And we're going to stop it," Trump told supporters at the same time that the latest accuser, a former "Apprentice" contestant, held a news conference to allege Trump advanced on her in nearly a decade ago.

Trump's running mate Mike Pence had vowed Friday morning that Trump's campaign would offer evidence to discredit allegations that the Republican presidential candidate sexually assaulted women. The vice presidential nominee said on NBC's "Today" show that evidence countering accusers' claims of groping and assault is just "hours" away. 

"Stay tuned, there's more information coming forward," Pence said on the morning show. 

He may have been referring to a New York Post interview released Friday afternoon. The newspaper reported that the Trump campaign passed on a note from a man who said he was watching an interaction in a first-class airline seat, which a woman says she fled from after Trump groped her.

"Not only did he not do so (and I was present at all times) but it was she that was the one being flirtatious," Anthony Gilberthorpe said in a note the campaign gave to The Post.

The story was published after two more women came forward alleging inappropriate touching, including the "Apprentice" contestant, and more audio emerged of Trump using crude language to describe Lindsay Lohan and other female celebrities. 

Without offering his own evidence to refute the allegations, Trump said at his rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, that the accusations were "phony." This week, at least six women have told publications detailed stories about encounters with Trump that ended with groping, kissing and other unwanted sexual advances. 

"Even a simple investigation would show these allegations, in just about all the cases, it's false," Trump said.

At the same rally, Trump appeared to discuss the looks of one of the women who has accused him of misconduct — "she would not be my first choice" and said of Hillary Clinton, "I wasn't impressed," when she walked by him.

But his main point was that the media was playing up allegations against him "without witnesses, without backup" as part of a campaign to stop him from being president. He also questioned why the same accusations weren't being levied at President Barack Obama.

"It's one big ugly lie, it's one big fix. The press can't write the kind of things they write which are lies, lies, lies," he said.

On Friday afternoon, The Washington Post published an interview with Kristin Anderson, who says Trump reached under her skirt and groped her at a Manhattan nightclub in the early 1990's. The Trump campaign denied these latest allegations, the Post said. 

“It wasn’t a sexual come-on. I don’t know why he did it. It was like just to prove that he could do it, and nothing would happen,” Anderson told the Post. “There was zero conversation. We didn’t even really look at each other. It was very random, very nonchalant on his part.”

The paper said that the now 46-year-old photographer told friends at the time what happened to her. A Post reporter reached out to her after hearing about the account from someone else who knew the story. 

Summer Zervos, former "Apprentice" contestant from season five, said Friday that Trump made sexual advances during what she thought would be a business meeting. Zervos discussed her encounters with Trump during a news conference in Los Angeles. 

CNN on Friday published audio clips of Trump discussing Lohan on "The Howard Stern Show" and saying "deeply troubled" women are "always the best in bed." Trump also said on the show he would pay not to receive oral sex from Rosie O'Donnell and talked about his distaste for women with big lips, including "Celebrity Apprentice" contestant Lisa Rinna, and Anna Nicole Smith, who had died four days earlier, according to CNN. 

Appearing on "Fox News" Friday, Pence also complained that the media unfairly focused on the sexual assault allegations instead of newly released hacked emails apparently from Hillary Clinton's campaign. He said emails from Clinton advisers show "religious bigotry."

He was referring to an exchange in which one aide suggested that being Catholic is a more "socially acceptable" conservative religion than being evangelical. 

Pence, an evangelical, said Clinton should denounce "these kinds of demeaning statements."

Trump promised to sue his media critics and said he was preparing evidence that would discredit his female accusers, whom he called "horrible people. They're horrible, horrible liars."

His defense appeared undermined by a video that surfaced last week in which he bragged about kissing and groping women without their permission. Similar behavior was detailed by women who accused Trump in articles published late Wednesday by The New York Times and the Palm Beach Post. Separately, a People magazine reporter offered a first-person account accusing Trump of attacking her in 2005 while she was in Florida to interview him and his pregnant wife.

Trump's attacks came after campaign manager Kellyanne Conway earlier in the week highlighted a Clinton tweet that said "every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported." Conway hoped to encourage more women to come forward with allegations against Bill Clinton, building on the campaign's decision to bring three of the former president's accusers to the second presidential debate.

"His campaign is promising more scorched-earth attacks. Now that's up to him," Hillary Clinton said during a San Francisco fundraiser. "He can run his campaign however he chooses. And frankly, I don't care if he goes after me."

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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