Last fall, Gloria Allred appeared alongside multiple women who accused Donald Trump of inappropriate behavior over a span of decades. More than a dozen women made similar allegations, and now, one accuser — former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos — has sued Trump for defamation. Zervos previously alleged that Trump groped and kissed her aggressively during what was supposed to be a meeting about a job.
As Allred detailed in a Tuesday press conference, Zervos has filed suit against President-elect Trump for his October 2016 reaction to these allegations, which saw him brand his accusers as fame seekers and tools of the Clinton campaign. Zervos also alleges that Trump made these statements — what she calls “lies” — despite the resulting “serious harm” to the womens’ reputations, safety, and livelihood. Allred stated that Trump “maliciously threw these women under the bus” and that Zervos has suffered significant damages.
Alled also stated that Zervos volunteered to take a lie detector test and passed, and she’s suing him because he did not retract his “false statements about her.” Zervos is still offering to retract as long as Trump admits that her story “is and was the truth.” Allred added that, as with Jones v. Clinton, presidents are “subject to the same laws that apply to all citizens.” Therefore, Trump will not be immune to lawsuits as president. And she called upon Trump to respond “rather than tweeting in the middle of the night.” Allred also added that she might subpoena NBC for Apprentice outtakes relevant to the lawsuit.
The wave of women who came forward last fall to accuse Trump of inappropriate behavior followed his insistence at a debate that he’d never acted upon “locker room talk.” That term, of course, was how Trump attempted to explain away his 2005 hot mic footage where he talked about how he liked to “grab them by the p*ssy.”