Former model says Donald Trump groped her during Trump Tower visit with Jeffrey Epstein in 1993 – US politics live

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Stacey William’s allegation of groping by Donald Trump is a reminder of how close he once was with Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump has claimed that they had a falling out and had not spoken in 15 years around the time of his death in 2019, but up to the early 2000s, the real estate mogul spoke highly of Epstein.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Here’s more, from The Guardian’s story detailing Williams’s allegation, on their relationship:

No evidence has surfaced that Trump was aware of or involved in Epstein’s misconduct.

But Trump and Epstein knew each other for decades and were photographed at the same social events in the 1990s and early 2000s, years before Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to state charges of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

After Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2019, Trump told journalists in the Oval Office that he “knew him, like everybody in Palm Beach knew him” but that he had a “falling out” with Epstein in the early 2000s.

“I haven’t spoken to him in 15 years,” Trump said. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”

Asked whether she had considered coming forward in the past, as other women were making allegations against Trump, Williams said she was a person who wanted to avoid negative attention or risk the backlash many other survivors have faced.

“I left the business,” she said. “I disappeared on purpose because I love being anonymous and I love my life of being a private citizen. Then I watched what has happened to women who come out and it is so horrifying and abusive. The thought of doing that, especially as a mother with a child in my house, was just not possible,” she told the Guardian.

“I just chose in my own way – comments on social media to contradict people who said he didn’t do anything,” she said.

Former model Stacey Williams also shed more light on the relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of sex offenses and killed himself in prison in 2019.

Williams briefly dated Epstein, and knew Trump as his friend. “It became very clear then that he and Donald were really, really good friends and spent a lot of time together,” Williams said.

Epstein suggested stopping by Trump tower one day in 1993 while on a walk with Williams, and was present when the real estate mogul groped her, she said.

Here’s what she said happened:

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.

…

After the alleged incident, Williams said that she and Epstein left Trump Tower, and that she began to feel Epstein growing angry at her.

“Jeffrey and I left and he didn’t look at me or speak to me and I felt this seething rage around me, and when we got down to the sidewalk, he looked at me and just berated me, and said why did you do that?” she said on the Zoom call.

“He made me feel so disgusting and I remember being so utterly confused,” she said.

She described how the alleged incident seemed to her to be part of a “twisted game”.

“I felt shame and disgust and as we went our separate ways, I felt this sensation of revisiting it, while the hands were all over me. And I had this horrible pit in my stomach that it was somehow orchestrated, I felt like a piece of meat,” she said in an interview with the Guardian.

Former model tells of being groped by Trump after Epstein introduction

A former model has told the Guardian that Donald Trump groped her at his Manhattan tower in 1993, after she was introduced to the real estate mogul by notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Stacey Williams said Trump put his hands “all over my breasts” as well as her waist and buttocks in their brief meeting, unwanted touching that left her “deeply confused”.

Here is the just-released story by the Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Lucy Osborne:

Trump calls Kelly 'a bad general' after former chief of staff accuses him of fascism

Donald Trump has assailed John Kelly as a “a bad general” gripped by “pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred” after his former White House chief of staff called the ex-president a fascist.

Kelly, a former general in the Marine corps, made the comment in an interview with the New York Times yesterday, which Kamala Harris seized on today as the latest evidence that Trump is seeking “unchecked power”.

Writing on Truth Social, Trump laid into Kelly:

Thank you for your support against a total degenerate named John Kelly, who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred! This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together. He was tough and dumb. The problem is his toughness morphed into weakness, because he became JELLO with time! The story about the Soldiers was A LIE, as are numerous other stories he told. Even though I shouldn’t be wasting my time with him, I always feel it’s necessary to hit back in pursuit of THE TRUTH. John Kelly is a LOWLIFE, and a bad General, whose advice in the White House I no longer sought, and told him to MOVE ON! His wife once told me, at Camp David, John admires you tremendously, and when he leaves the Military, he will only speak well of you. I said, Thank you!

We’re going to be hearing even more from Donald Trump later this evening, when he speaks before a packed rally in suburban Atlanta.

As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, former independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr is among the warm-up acts, and is downplaying the recent comments from John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, who described him as a fascist:

A new report from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center details steps that Chinese operatives have taken to discredit Republican members of Congress and that Russian agents are taking to undermine the Harris-Walz campaign.

Microsoft found a series of videos and social media posts targeting Representative Barry Moore of Alabama, Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida – three of the most vocal Republican critics of China. “While not always resulting in high levels of engagement, these efforts demonstrate China’s sustained attempts influence US politics across the board,” Clint Watts, who heads the Threat Analysis Center, wrote in a post accompanying the report.

Meanwhile, Microsoft also found that Russian actors had continued creating AI-enhanced deepfake videos about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. “While most of these videos received minimal engagement, they underscore Russia’s ongoing use of both traditional and AI-generated content to influence US audiences and stoke political discord,” Watts added. “We have also seen some actors shifting their content publishing strategy from Telegram to X to reach US. audiences.”

The news came the same day that the Washington Post reported that a former Florida sheriff is aiding the Kremlin in its efforts to spread misinformation and deepfakes about Harris.

Kamala Harris to deliver 'closing argument' at site of January 6 rally

Kamala Harris will deliver a major “closing argument” address next week in the same location that Donald Trump rallied January 6 rioters before they stormed the US Capitol in 2021. According to a senior campaign official, Harris will speak at the Ellipse, a public park just south of the White House, on 29 October – exactly one week before the 5 November election.

The vice-president is expected to emphasize her New Way Forward campaign, and call on voters to move past the chaos and division of the Trump era. The campaign’s decision to hold a “closing argument” address harkens back to Harris’s history as a prosecutor – who is now taking her case to the “jury”, or American voters.

Los Angeles Times editorials editor resigns

Following news that the owner of the Los Angeles Times had prohibited the paper from endorsing a presidential candidate, the editorials editor resigned today.

The editorial board had planned to endorse Kamala Harris.

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

The paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, told the editorial board that the paper would not endorse a candidate on 11 October. By then, Garza had already drafted a proposed editorial endorsing Harris on behalf of the board.

Richard Luscombe

Supporters of Kamala Harris are gathering at a rally in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Hallandale Beach, Florida, for an early evening speech by her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

It’s a rare foray into the Sunshine state by a principal in her campaign.

Harris trails Trump by about six points in a state he won in both 2016 and 2020, and Democrats privately concede the Republican is in line for its 30 electoral college votes this time too. Much of Emhoff’s time in recent days has been spent in more competitive states such as Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

But the US Senate race between incumbent the Republican Rick Scott and her Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is a closer affair, with Scott leading by about three points. Emhoff is expected to address Florida’s draconian six-week abortion ban, the overturning of which in a ballot initiative called amendment 4 has become a central plank of her campaign.

Mucarsel-Powell is among this evening’s speakers. Emhoff will follow his appearance here with a fundraising event and rally in Coral Gables, Florida, tonight before returning to stump for the vice-president in the battleground states.

With election day less than two weeks away, a top House Democrat is warning that Donald Trump has failed to engage with customary presidential transition procedures.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the leading Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to Donald Trump and JD Vance today warning that the two are “breaking the precedent set by every other presidential candidate since 2010” by not signing the memorandum of understanding that typically governs the transition of power. The memorandum of understanding triggers government transition funding and planning assistance, which allows nominees to access office space and equipment, information technology and staff assistance.

In the letter, Raskin wrote that Trump’s refusal to sign the documents “may be at least partially driven by your intent to circumvent fundraising rules that put limits on private contributions on the transition effort and require public reporting. You may also be acting out of a more general aversion to ethics rules designed to prevent conflicts of interest in the incoming administration.”

In a press release, the House Oversight Committee added that Trump’s failure to sign the documents “is particularly troubling in light of the fact that he has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power”.

Police have arrested two men for fomenting election-related violence in Colorado and Arizona.

Last night, Tempe police arrested Jeffrey Michael Kelly for allegedly shooting at Democratic party offices in Tempe, Arizona, in September and October. Meanwhile, a Colorado man named Teak Ty Brockbank pleaded guilty today to transmitting interstate threats, for making online threats about killing elected officials in Colorado and Arizona.

Kelly was charged with seven felony counts and three misdemeanor counts, including terrorism and unlawful discharge, the Arizona Republic reports. Arizona Mirror reporter Jerod MacDonald-Evoy adds that police found 120 guns and 250,000 rounds of ammunition in Kelly’s home.

Charges against Brockbank, meanwhile, were brought by the justice department’s Election Threats Task Force over threats Brockbank made in 2021 and 2022, including calling for elections officials to be hanged. Brockbank will be sentenced in February.

Kamala Harris has told NBC News that she’s preparing for the possibility that Donald Trump will declare victory before the election is complete.

“We will deal with election night and the days after as they come, and we have the resources and the expertise and the focus on that,” she said.

Speaking at a Believers and Ballots town hall in Zebulon, Georgia, today, Donald Trump praised tech mogul Elon Musk for providing hurricane relief where he says the federal government did not.

The former president has returned to his scapegoating of immigrants, saying that the federal government would have more funds for hurricane relief if it were not supporting non-citizens.

“You know who did help us though? Elon Musk,” he said. After Hurricane Helene hit, he said: “They needed Starlink badly in North Carolina.” Trump added that Musk “saved a lot of lives”.

False information has swirled in the communications blackout that followed Hurricane Helene’s devastation. Phone and power lines were down across the south, the Guardian’s Blake Montgomery reports.

Musk has a history of inserting himself into rescue operations. He accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) of blocking his satellite internet company, Starlink, from delivering to parts of North Carolina decimated by the hurricane, a claim both Fema and transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg said was false.

The justice department has warned Elon Musk’s America Pac, which has donated millions of dollars to support Trump’s bid for the presidency, that paying people to register to vote violates federal law, CNN reports.