Hillary Clinton’s campaign pounced on the opportunity to call Donald Trump a liar Wednesday night, hours after the New York Time published a scathing report in which two women accused the Republican presidential nominee of sexual assault.
“This disturbing story sadly fits everything we know about the way Donald Trump has treated women,” Clinton’s communications director Jennifer Palmieri said in a statement released by the campaign.
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“These reports suggest that he lied on the debate stage and that the disgusting behavior he bragged about in the tape are more than just words,” she added.
Despite making comments about pursuing women without their permission in an audio tape leaked last Friday, Trump told CNN’s Anderson Cooper during the second presidential debate on Sunday that he has never touched a woman sexually without her consent.
“I wanted to punch the screen,” Jessica Leeds, a former traveling businesswoman, told the Times. Leeds alleged that Trump had grabbed her breasts and attempted to put his hands up her skirt when they were seated next to each other on a flight to New York in the 1980s.
“He was like an octopus. His hands were everywhere,” she said.
A second woman, Rachel Cooks, claimed that Trump had kissed her on the lips when she was working in Trump Tower at age 22. “I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that,” she said.
Jason Miller, a senior communications adviser to the Trump campaign, said both women’s allegations were categorically false in a statement released late Wednesday evening.
“This entire article is fiction, and for the New York Times to launch a completely false, coordinated character assassination against Mr. Trmp on a topic like this is dangerous,” Miller said. “It is absurd to think that one of the most recognizable business leaders on the planet with a strong record of empowering women in his companies would do the things alleged in this story, and for this to only become public decades later in the final month of a campaign for president should say it all.”
