Predatory Trump drowns in tsunami of sex abuse allegations

ONALD TRUMP, who is now facing at least 11 allegations of sexual abuse from women prepared to go on record, yesterday made a desperate bid to claim he was the victim of a “smear campaign” and a conspiracy to undermine him.

The Republican presidential candidate has come under increasing pressure since his 2005 boast, recorded off-camera on a tour bus about how he groped women by “grabbing them by the p****”, was released earlier this month.

He has dismissed the claims as “slander and libel”. But with a further two women coming forward on Friday, along with allegations made by numerous women of inappropriate behaviour such as walking in on models – including underage girls – while changing at beauty contests, his campaign is finding it ever-more difficult to counter the tsunami of sleaze.

One of the latest allegations involves Kristin Anderson, who alleges the property mogul touched her through her underwear at a Manhattan nightspot in the 1990s. Anderson, now 46, claims she was at the city’s China Club when Trump, without introducing himself or speaking to her, reached under her skirt. The story came to light late as she was approached by the Washington Post after they were told of the incident, and spent several days deciding whether to go public before concluding that dismissing it would send “an awful message to women”. She said: “I don’t know why he did it. It was like just to prove that he could, and nothing would happen.”

Later the same day a former Apprentice contestant, Summer Zervos, accused Trump of aggressively kissing, groping and “thrusting his genitals” at her on two separate occasions in 2007 when she met the businessman, thinking she was meeting him to discuss jobs.

Reading a prepared statement, and supported by her lawyer, Zervos, pictured above with attorney Gloria Allred, was tearful as she described the assaults, which she was forced to fend off. Other complainers include Jessica Leeds, who claims she was groped on a flight in the early 1980s. Now 74, Leeds said he grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hands up her skirt. “His hands were everywhere,” she said. Last week, makeup artist Jill Harth accused him of attempted rape in 1993 after he pushed her against a wall in his daughter Ivanka’s bedroom while she was working.

Temple Taggart McDowell is one of a number of women who claims Trump kissed her without consent as a 21-year-old Miss USA contestant in 1997. The same claim has been made by Rachel Crooks, who visited Trump Towers in 2005 while working for real-estate company Bayrock Group. People reporter Natasha Stoynoff has alleged that Trump pushed her against a wall and forced a kiss on her in the same year. Cassandra Searles also claimed only three years ago Trump repeatedly groped her, posting on Facebook that “he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room”. Yesterday, Trump claimed the women were “sick” people seeking fame or money and making “100 per cent fabricated charges” under pressure from lobbyists on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “Hopefully our patriotic movement will overcome this terrible deception,” he said while on the campaign trail. He also mocked Anderson’s claim onstage in North Carolina, pausing to reach out his hand to touch an imaginary woman as his accuser described him doing to her. Trump claimed the smear campaign against him was being driven by the New York Times, noting its connection to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, a claim that Slim has denied.

Meanwhile, Trump’s running mate, Indiana governor Mike Pence, promised the campaign would soon release evidence of the candidate’s innocence.

Last night, Trump suggested rival Hillary Clinton was on some kind of drug during the last debate and said that both candidates should be tested for substances ahead of the next one.