No change in Trump response

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman maintained Friday that all of the women who have accused him of unwanted touching or kissing were lying.

“Yeah, we’ve been clear on that from the beginning, and the president has spoken on it,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said when asked if Trump’s position on the accusations was that “all of these women are lying.”

Accusations against Trump arose during last year’s presidential campaign, when at least 11 women described physical actions by the president that they found offensive. Trump at the time called the women “horrible liars” and suggested in at least one case that he was not physically attracted to the woman making the accusation.

The president himself, however, was caught bragging in vulgar language, on a 2005 video made by the “Access Hollywood” show, about grabbing and kissing women without their permission.

Trump’s actions have received renewed interest since movie producer Harvey Weinstein has been accused by dozens of women of inappropriate sexual acts. Trump also has told reporters that he was not taken aback by the alleged actions against Weinstein, a longtime Democratic donor.

“I’ve known Harvey Weinstein for a long time. I’m not all surprised to see it,” Trump said on Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, four women have now come forward to accuse former President George H.W. Bush of touching them inappropriately, including one who said this week that the 93-year-old former president grabbed her years before he began using a wheelchair.

After the second allegation, Bush’s office on Wednesday night released a statement, which said in part:

“At age 93, President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures,” the statement said. “To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke — and on occasion, he has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a goodnatured manner.

“To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most sincerely.”

On Friday, The Portland Press Herald in Maine reported that the fourth woman, Amanda Staples, alleged in an Instagram post that Bush had touched her inappropriately in 2006, before he was in a wheelchair. Staples had been running as a Republican for a seat in the Maine state Senate when she said she posed with Bush for a photo.