Trump campaign denies 1997 assault claim against the president

US President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign on Thursday denied a Guardian newspaper report in which a former model accused the New York real estate developer of sexually assaulting and groping her at the US Open tennis tournament in 1997.

The Guardian reported that Amy Dorris told the paper in an interview that Trump assaulted her outside a bathroom in his VIP box at the tournament that year. She was 24 at the time, the newspaper said.

“He just shoved his tongue down my throat and I was pushing him off. And then that’s when his grip became tighter and his hands were very gropey and all over my butt, my breasts, my back, everything,” the newspaper quoted Dorris as saying.

In the Guardian today, Amy Dorris bravely told me about her allegation of sexual assault against Donald Trump.

On why now, she says: "I’ve noticed a shift in how women are being treated since he became president… so I am coming out for me, for my kids" https://t.co/p2VnJkYmx6

— Lucy Osborne (@Lucy_Osborne) September 17, 2020

The president’s re-election campaign on Thursday said the allegations were not true.

“The allegations are totally false. We will consider every legal means available to hold The Guardian accountable for its malicious publication of this unsubstantiated story,” said Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to Trump’s campaign.

Efforts to reach Dorris by phone for comment were unsuccessful.

The Guardian said in an email it stood by its reporting.

The newspaper published photos that it said were provided by Dorris showing her with Trump and said that it interviewed several people who Dorris confided in at the time of the incident. It said that in total she provided six photos showing the two together, as well as her ticket to the tournament on the day she said the incident occurred.

Trump has faced a number of allegations of sexual misconduct prior to his time in office. Shortly before the November 2016 election, an Access Hollywood recording from 2005 revealed him boasting about groping women. Trump dismissed the comments as “locker room banter” and apologised.

American journalist E Jean Carroll has sued Trump for defamation after the president denied her allegation he raped her in the 1990s saying she was “not my type”. The US Justice Department has moved in court to take over the president’s defence.

Dorris, a mother of twins, told the newspaper she considered coming forward in 2016 but decided against doing so partly out of fears for her family.

“Now, I feel like my girls are about to turn 13 years old and I want them to know that you don’t let anybody do anything to you that you don’t want,” she said.