Donald Trump sailed past a raft of allegations of sexual misconduct in last year’s presidential election. Now the national #MeToo spotlight is turning back to Trump and his past conduct.
Several of his accusers are urging Congress to investigate his behavior, and a number of Democratic lawmakers are demanding his resignation. With each day seeming to bring new headlines that force men from positions of power, the movement to expose sexual harassment has forced an unwelcome conversation on the White House. But to Trump’s accusers, the rising #MeToo movement is an occasion to ensure he is at last held accountable.
“It was heartbreaking last year. We’re private citizens and for us to put ourselves out there to try and show America who this man is and how he views women, and for them to say, ‘Eh, we don’t care,’ it hurt,” Samantha Holvey said Monday.
The former beauty queen claimed that Trump ogled her and other Miss USA pageant contestants in their dressing room in 2006.
“Let’s try round two,” she said. “The environment’s different. Let’s try again.”
Holvey was one of four women to make her case against Trump on Monday, both in an NBC interview and then in a news conference. Rachel Crooks, a former Trump Tower receptionist who said the celebrity businessman kissed her on the mouth in 2006 without consent, called for Congress to “put aside party affiliations and investigate Trump’s history of sexual misconduct.”
“If they were willing to investigate Sen. Franken, it’s only fair that they do the same for Trump,” Crooks said.
Franken, the Democratic senator from Minnesota, announced last week that he would resign amid an ethics probe into accusations that he sexually harassed several women. Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Trent Franks, R-Ariz., also resigned after misconduct accusations. But a Capitol Hill investigation into Trump’s conduct appears unlikely. The Senate and House Ethics Committees investigate members of Congress, not presidents, and Republican-led committees are not apt to investigate Trump on sexual misconduct unless there is some sort of connection to the ongoing Russia probe.
