Trump faces new sexual accusation
Woman says Republican touched her breast outside US tennis tournament
A yoga teacher stepped into the maelstrom of the United States presidential election yesterday, breaking down in tears as she became the 10th woman to accuse Donald Trump of inappropriate sexual behaviour.
Karena Virginia publicly accused the Republican nominee of touching her breast as she waited for a car outside the US Open tennis tournament in 1998, when she was 27 years old.
Her allegation came hours after Trump had angrily denied ever behaving inappropriately towards women. On Thursday in Las Vegas during the third and final presidential debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton, he said “no one respects women more than me” and that such accusations were “lies, lies, lies”.
In an emotional statement at a press conference in New York, Virginia, a married mother- of- two, who describes herself as a life coach, said she felt “intimidated” by Trump.
She claimed that Trump had remarked to some other men, “Hey look at this one, we haven’t seen this one before, look at those legs,” before asking her: “Do you know who I am?”
Virginia, who was flanked by her lawyer, Gloria Allred, said tearfully: “He then walked up to me and reached out his right arm and grabbed my right arm.
“Then, his hand touched the right inside of my breast. I was in shock. I flinched. I felt powerless. Then my car pulled up and I got in. After I closed the door my shock turned to shame. I felt ashamed that I was wearing a short dress and high heels.”
It came amid reports that Selina Scott, who presented an ITV documentary about Trump in 1995, was preparing to reveal details of what happened when the cameras stopped rolling. Scott has previously described an encounter in which Trump invited her to look at his “seduction pad” on his private jet as “a creepy chat- up line”.
Trump was yesterday dealing with fallout from the debate in which he threatened not to accept the result if he loses the November 8 election.
Asked whether he would accept defeat, Trump replied: “I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.”
Yesterday he said he would accept the results of the election “if I win”. He said he reserved the “right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result.”
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, said: “For a lot of people around the world it looks like a breakdown of the democratic process. He’s a demagogue who wants to rally the masses.”
Clinton said after the debate: “We’re a country based on laws, and we have hot, contested elections . . . But one of our hallmarks has always been that we accept the outcomes of our election.”
But Trump’s comments were welcomed by some fervent followers. One told the Boston Globe: “I hope we can start a coup. We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office.”