NEW YORK (TND) — A woman who claimed former President Donald Trump sexually harassed her on an airplane in the late 1970s described the experience with Trump after he made recent remarks about women who accused him of abuse.
Jessica Leeds said Trump grabbed her, tried to kiss her and put his hand under her skirt as they sat next to each other on board a jet. She said she was traveling for work when she was invited to sit in first class and sat next to Trump, who talked incessantly about himself before groping her.
“He attacked me 50 years ago and he’s still attacking me today,” Leeds said Monday with her lawyers during a press conference in New York.
“It was like he had 47 arms – like an octopus, but he didn’t make a sound,” she added.
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Leeds said she later encountered Trump and claimed he taunted and verbally harassed her. She said he exclaimed, “I remember you,” and then called her a derogatory name.
Leeds also told the media that she and her lawyers are considering “a number of options” after Trump made what she considered a “bizarre” remark on Friday. She added that Trump has “no respect for women” and should not be re-elected as president.
“Ultimately, he doesn’t understand that he is a sex offender,” she said.
During his own press conference, Trump said he had “no idea” who Leeds was and insisted she had made up the allegations, adding that she “would not have been the chosen one.”
“Think about how inconvenient that is. I’m famous, I’m on a plane. People come on the plane, and I look at a woman, I grab her and start kissing her and making out with her. What are the chances of that happening?” he said. “And honestly, I know you’re going to say that’s a terrible thing to say, but that couldn’t have happened. It didn’t happen. And she wouldn’t have been the chosen one.”
Trump also said he believed the allegations were “made on purpose” because he was about to take over the White House again.
“This is a scandalous case,” he said. “It is particularly scandalous because it involves a former president of the United States who now has the best chance in the polls to become president again, and like all such cases, this case is being handled with the Department of Justice.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Associated Presscontributed to this report.
