I was planning to take the night off to get some distance from the rush of events. But alas, no. In the last couple of hours there have been three new stories about Donald Trump groping women at various points in the last three decades, in different parts of the country. There are a total of four women in three stories. Then there’s an additional story that is not abuse per se but shows a rather creepy and certainly inappropriate way of talking about and thinking about 10 year old girls.
Getting the most attention is a story in The New York Times about two women, entirely separate incidents. The first is a story from more than thirty years ago. A woman is sitting next to Trump in a first class airline cabin when he begins fondling her body.
A brief passage …
More than three decades ago, when she was a traveling businesswoman at a paper company, Ms. Leeds said, she sat beside Mr. Trump in the first-class cabin of a flight to New York. They had never met before.
About 45 minutes after takeoff, she recalled, Mr. Trump lifted the armrest and began to touch her.
According to Ms. Leeds, Mr. Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt.
There is of course much more.
The other incident in the Times story is from 2005 and involves a young receptionist at Bayrock Group, a Manhattan real estate corporation then-based in Trump Tower. Bizarre connection: Bayrock is a major part of the stories that deal with Trump’s connections with Russian money and organized crime. The incident in this case was aggressive, unwanted kissing.
Again, many more details in the piece. I’m just trying to give the briefest summary. Nice additional touch: after flatly denying all accusations, Trump called the female Times reporter asking him for comment “a disgusting human being.”
Next, King5 TV in Washington state and Rolling Stone. Miss Washington 2013, Cassandra Searles describes degrading treatment and how Trump repeatedly “grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room.”
On to the next story: Mindy McGillivray at Mar-A-Lago in 2003 from The Palm Beach Post. The then-23 year old McGillivray was at Mar-a-Lago to help a photographer shooting a concert. She was listening to the late Ray Charles perform when …
“All of a sudden I felt a grab, a little nudge. I think it’s Ken’s camera bag, that was my first instinct. I turn around and there’s Donald. He sort of looked away quickly. I quickly turned back, facing Ray Charles, and I’m stunned.’’
The last story, happily not an assault story. Video from Entertainment Tonight from 1992 …
The video, released Wednesday evening, was shot at Trump Tower
In the clip, Trump asks one of the girls if she’s “going up the escalator.” When the girl replies, “yeah,” Trump turns to the camera and says: “I am going to be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it?”
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign says it is going to intensify its attacks on Bill Clinton’s past, using allegations against Bill Clinton against Hillary Clinton. Says Steve Bannon, former Breitbart News chief now Trump campaign chief: “We’re going to turn him into Bill Cosby.”
Nota Bene: Yes, this is all happening.
Finally, why are all these stories coming out tonight? We can’t know precisely. But as we noted Sunday night, Trump’s flat declaration that he has never sexually assaulted a woman was the sort of categorical statement that provides a clear hook for news organizations, a clear, categorical statement to examine, challenge and try to refute. It is also the kind of statement likely to bring forward victims, if there are any, who’ve remained silent. It seems like there are a lot of them.
Once that happens, a legitimate news organization cannot and will not just take accuser’s word for it and go ahead and print an allegation. There is seldom proof, per se. But there are standard methods of verification and due diligence a news organization will employ. The first is contemporaneous accounts. Did the victim have others she told at the time or near the time? Can those people verify they were told? Can the accuser verify they were where they claim? Was Trump there? Again, basic due diligence to make a decision about whether a claim is credible. You can’t do that in an hour or two. Many of these new accusers appear to have been prompted to come forward because of Trump’s declaration in Sunday night’s debate. If you figure they reached out to the news organization’s on Monday, Wednesday evening is probably about as quickly as those stories could be turned around.
It seems highly likely that there are many more of these to come.
Late Update – 10:59 PM: Another story, this one a first person account by a reporter from People magazine.
