The White House Just Said Trump Accusers Are Lying About Sexual Harassment
During a press conference earlier this month, Donald Trump was questioned about an ongoing legal case involving a former Apprentice contestant—one in which the President has been accused of sexual assault.
Trump immediately dismissed the situation as “totally fake news,” adding, “It’s just fake. It’s fake. It’s made-up stuff, and it’s disgraceful, what happens, but that happens in the—that happens in the world of politics,”
The litigation dates back to last October—not long after Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood leaked—and was brought forward by Summer Zervos, who says Trump kissed and grabbed her during a meeting at a Beverly Hills hotel a decade ago. Recently, BuzzFeed reported that Trump’s campaign had been subpoenaed for “all documents concerning any accusations that were made during Donald J. Trump’s election campaign for president, that he subjected any woman to unwanted sexual touching and/or sexually inappropriate behavior.”
As the news cycle has been dominated by the barrage of reports of sexual harassment and misconduct against numerous powerful men, Trump’s ongoing legal trouble was once again brought up during Friday’s daily White House press briefing with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
“Obviously, sexual harassment has been in the news, at least 16 women have accused the president of sexually harassing them throughout the course of the campaign,” one reporter began. “Last week during a press conference in the Rose Garden the president called these accusations fake news. Is the official White House position that all of these women are lying?”
Without mincing any words, Sanders confirmed that the White House does believe all these women are lying, saying “Yeah, we’ve been clear on that from the beginning and the President has spoken on it.”
Numerous women have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment or misconduct against the President. As accusations mounted during the 2016 campaign, Trump said that he was “a victim of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country.”