Trump accusers call for Congress to investigate sexual misconduct allegations against him
— -- Three women who previously accused President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct in the years before his election are calling for Congress to investigate the allegations against him after a week in which three members of Congress stepped down over similar claims.
Rachel Crooks, Jessica Leeds and Samantha Holvey appeared at a news conference Monday.
"I ask that Congress put aside their party affiliations and investigate Mr. Trump's history of sexual misconduct," Crooks said.
Crooks alleged that Trump "has escaped his past unscathed, but over a dozen women have come forward about his sexual misconduct, and we have video proof of him promoting such behavior," referring to an "Access Hollywood" recording from 2005.
"In an objective setting, without question, a person with this record would have entered the graveyard of political aspirations, never to return. Yet here we are with that man as president," Crooks said.
Trump has denied allegations of sexual harassment and assault. He apologized last year for his comments recorded by "Access Hollywood."
Asked about the women's claims Monday afternoon, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders repeated Trump's denials and added that the White House believes the "allegations have been answered" through last year's election, since he was victorious even after the public was aware of the accusations.
The three women appeared earlier Monday on NBC's "Today" show, on which host Megyn Kelly read a statement from the White House in response to the women's allegations.
"These false claims, totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts, were addressed at length during last year’s campaign, and the American people voiced their judgment by delivering a decisive victory," the White House statement said. "The timing and absurdity of these false claims speaks volumes, and the publicity tour that has begun only further confirms the political motives behind them."
Crooks first made her allegations in an article in The New York Times in October 2016. She said that in 2005, when she was a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate investment and development company in Trump Tower in Manhattan, she encountered Trump outside an elevator in the building one morning.
She said she knew her company did business with Trump, so she introduced herself, and they shook hands. But, she told the Times, Trump would not let go and began kissing her cheeks. Then he "kissed me directly on the mouth," she said.
"I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that," Crooks told the Times.
She said at the news conference Monday, "I was shocked. Devastated. It happened so fast."
Leeds, who also first went public in the Times article in October 2016, alleges that Trump groped her during the late 1970s while she was traveling first class on an airplane. Leeds was a salesperson in her 30s at the time.
"They served a meal, and after the meal was cleared, all of a sudden, he's all over me — kissing and groping and groping and kissing," she said on "Today."
Leeds also said on the show that three years after the alleged incident on the airplane, she moved to New York City and ran into Trump while she was working at a fundraiser gala. She said he recognized her from the plane and, using a profanity, "called me the worst name ever."
"It was shocking. It was like a bucket of cold water being thrown over me," she said of the alleged interaction with Trump.
Leeds said on NBC that she chose not to tell anyone about the alleged encounters with Trump until he was running for president.
"I wanted people to know what kind of person Trump really is," she said.
Holvey, a former Miss USA pageant contestant, also went public with her allegations in October 2016 in an interview with CNN.
She was the 2006 Miss North Carolina in the pageant that year, she told CNN. During an event in New York City in the month before the pageant, Trump inspected each of the contestants, she alleged.
"He would step in front of each girl and look you over from head to toe like we were just meat, we were just sexual objects, that we were not people," Holvey told CNN. "You know when a gross guy at the bar is checking you out? It's that feeling."
Monday on "Today," she said that after going public with her story, it was "heartbreaking" to see Trump win the election.
"We're private citizens, and for us to put ourselves out there to try and show America who this man is and especially how he views women and for them to say, 'Meh, we don't care,' it hurt." Holvey said.
