In recent days, there have been some very loud murmurs of an “October Surprise” involving Donald Trump. MAGA World has been jittery and they’re already trying to say that whatever comes out, it’s not real, it’s some kind of deepfake, and people are out to get their demented Nazi north star. Journalist Mark Halperin spoke out on Tuesday that he’s been pitching a story for more than a week, a story which would conceivably end Trump’s campaign. Then last night, Keith Edwards tweeted: “I have been told that Trump groped a minor at one of his donor dinners — and that there’s video.” As of this moment, no one has confirmed any of that and no video has been released. I think that’s the story (maybe?) which has MAGA World so jittery. Either that or they were just trying to change the story from all of those first-hand accounts of how often Donald Trump talks about how he loves Adolf Hitler.
Meanwhile, I have no idea if this story blindsided MAGA World, but they’re already doing some nasty work around it. Last night, the Guardian published an account of Stacey Williams, who claims she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump after being introduced to Trump by Jeffrey Epstein.
A former model who says she met Donald Trump through the late sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein has accused the former president of groping and sexually touching her in an incident in Trump Tower in 1993, in what she believed was a “twisted game” between the two men.
Stacey Williams, who worked as a professional model in the 1990s, said she first met Trump in 1992 at a Christmas party after being introduced to him by Epstein, who she believed was a good friend of the then New York real estate developer. Williams said Epstein was interested in her and the two casually dated for a period of a few months.
“It became very clear then that he and Donald were really, really good friends and spent a lot of time together,” Williams said.
The alleged groping occurred some months later, in the late winter or early spring of 1993, when Epstein suggested during a walk they were on that he and Williams stop by to visit Trump at Trump Tower. Epstein was later convicted on sex offenses and killed himself in prison in 2019.
Moments after they arrived, she alleges, Trump greeted Williams, pulled her toward him and started groping her. She said he put his hands “all over my breasts” as well as her waist and her buttocks. She said she froze because she was “deeply confused” about what was happening. At the same time, she said she believed she saw the two men smiling at each other.
…Williams, who is 56 and a native of Pennsylvania, has shared parts of her allegation on social media posts in the past, but revealed details about the alleged encounter on a call on Monday organized by a group called Survivors for Kamala, which supports Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The Zoom call featured actor Ashley Judd and law professor and academic Anita Hill, among others. Survivors for Kamala also took out an ad in the New York Times this week, signed by 200 survivors of sexual and gender violence, which was meant to serve as a reminder that Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse in a court.
I believe Stacey Williams, just as I believe all of the women who have come out to tell their horrific stories about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Trump is an adjudicated rapist, and, just a reminder, Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $88.3 million for raping her and defaming her. We still don’t know the extent of Trump and Epstein’s relationship, we still don’t know whether Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had Trump’s permission to hunt for victims at Mar-a-Lago, we still don’t know how many victims Epstein supplied to men like Donald Trump. MAGA World is already making fun of those victims too – the MAGAts and the Russian bots got “#KamalaGropedMe” trending overnight.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Getty.