Indiana Gov. Mike Pence blasted the media on Sunday for launching a coordinated attack against Donald Trump, who has faced an onslaught of sexual assault allegations since he was caught making lewd comments about women in an audio tape released earlier this month.
“Let me just say that I thought it was right and proper last weekend for Donald Trump to apologize for the offensive comments that he made in a video that was released 11 years ago on an open microphone,” Pence told Fox News’ Bret Baier.
“But frankly, the timing of these unsubstantiated claims that are going to come forward — all of which Donald Trump has categorically denied — is, I think, deeply troubling,” he said, noting that “there’s countervailing evidence that’s coming out right now and more information will probably come.”
The Republican vice presidential hopeful claimed the allegations against Trump have been carefully timed to divert attention away from the thousands of emails released by WikiLeaks that have contained damaging information about Hillary Clinton’s charitable foundation, her speeches to elite financial firms and her private email practices.
“Once again, here we are in the middle of an election of such enormous magnitude in the life of this nation and once again the media is leading with unsubstantiated claims as the headlines while they ignore an avalanche of hard evidence of corruption [and] pay-to-play politics emanating out of Hillary Clinton’s years as secretary of state,” he said.
At least nine women have leveled accusations of sexual misconduct against Trump that, in some cases, date back to the 1980s. Many of the women have claimed that he touched them inappropriately or groped them without their consent.
“These claims are all fabricated. They’re pure fiction and they are outright lies,” Trump charged during a campaign rally on Friday. “These events never ever happened [and] the claims are preposterous, ludicrous, and defy truth, common sense and logic.”
