Following a jury in a civil trial on Tuesday discovering former President Donald Trump responsible for sexual assault, two former Trump aides have come ahead with allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct within the White Home.
The 2 former aides — former White Home Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin and former Trump White Home Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham — appeared on CNN after the decision was handed down within the case introduced ahead by author E. Jean Carroll. Along with discovering Trump responsible for sexually assaulting Carroll within the mid-Nineties, the jury also found Trump liable for defaming her; for years, Trump had derided Carroll as a liar, utilizing such vitriolic rhetoric that it had price Carroll her job.
Carroll was awarded $5 million by the jury. Although Trump’s lewd habits and feedback towards ladies have been well-documented over time, that is the primary time a jury has rendered a verdict saying, inside a civil court docket of regulation, that Trump had engaged in violent and sexually aggressive habits towards one other particular person.
After the decision was handed down, Griffin stated on CNN that there were “countless cases” of “impropriety” by Trump whereas he was president.
“I assumed the best way he engaged with ladies was harmful,” she stated, including that there have been “issues that I might contemplate improper and that I had an obligation to report” to higher-ups within the Trump administration.
“We needed to chalk it as much as locker room speak in 2016,” Griffin went on, referring to excuses made by Trump and his followers after leaked audio from an Entry Hollywood tape was made public throughout that yr’s presidential marketing campaign. “It was not locker room speak.”
Grisham, who has detailed Trump’s predatory behavior in books she has written about her time within the administration, additionally appeared on CNN to debate the decision within the civil trial.
Trump regularly commented on ladies’s seems whereas he was in workplace, Grisham stated, noting that one staffer specifically obtained the brunt of Trump’s undesirable advances.
“I did the whole lot I might to maintain her off of journeys truly and to stick with her if she was with him alone, as a result of I used to be actually nervous about what might occur,” Grisham said.
Trump would typically order his subordinates to convey the staffer in query close to him in order that he might touch upon her seems to others, Grisham added. “He one time had one among my different deputies convey her again in order that they might ‘take a look at her ass’ is what he stated to him,” she stated.
Grisham additionally stated that, wanting bringing these incidents to the eye of then-chief of employees Mark Meadows, she and others who have been uncomfortable with Trump’s habits felt there was little they might do to carry him accountable.
“I feel on the finish of the day, what might they do apart from go in there and say, ‘This isn’t good, sir?’” she said.
Although Trump didn’t testify within the civil trial, a video deposition of him responding to questions from Carroll’s legal professionals was proven to jurors. Through the deposition, Trump disparaged ladies a number of instances; in one among his responses, he claimed that he wouldn’t have raped or assaulted Carroll as a result of she wasn’t his “kind.” Later, he advised one among Caroll’s legal professionals that she “wouldn’t be a selection” of his, both.
Over time, Trump has been accused by a minimum of 26 ladies of sexual harassment or assault, according to a tally kept by Vice.
After the jury dominated in her favor, Carroll celebrated the result, stating that the case wasn’t about cash however fairly about holding Trump accountable for his actions.
“I’m overwhelmed, overwhelmed with pleasure and happiness and delight for the ladies on this nation,” she said.
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