SOURCE: CNN
URL:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/14/politics/donald-trump-women-accuser/index.htmlby: Jeremy Diamond
Greensboro, North Carolina (CNN) Another woman is accusing Donald Trump this week of groping her without her consent, alleging in an interview that Trump slid his fingers under her skirt and touched her vagina through her underwear.
Kristin Anderson, now a 46-year-old photographer living in California, told the Washington Post in an interview published Friday that the incident occurred on a night out in Manhattan in the early 1990s when she was an aspiring model.
Anderson told the Post that she was sitting with friends at a Manhattan nightclub when suddenly a man who she quickly recognized as Trump put his hand up her skirt. The two had not spoken or met before the incident occurred, Anderson said.
CNN has not yet independently verified Anderson's account. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement the account is a "total fabrication."
"It is illogical and nonsensical to think Donald Trump was alone in a nightclub in Manhattan and that the alleged incident and recognition of Mr. Trump went unnoticed by both the woman involved and anyone else in this 'crowded' venue."
Hicks also questioned the timing of the allegations.
"Further, why is this just coming out now? She described the allegation as being 'inconsequential at the time,' but why then wasn't it consequential when Mr. Trump announced for President, or when he won the primary, or when he headlined the convention -- why is it just now, three weeks before election day, consequential? The answer is that this is clearly a political attack designed to tear down Mr. Trump."
The denial is similar to ones the Trump campaign has offered this week as four other women have come forward this week to accuse Trump of kissing or groping them without their consent. CNN has not independently verified any of these allegations.
The allegations, which have rocked Trump's presidential campaign, emerged days after audio of a lewd conversation in which Trump bragged in 2005 about kissing and groping women surfaced last Friday. Trump apologized for the words, but insisted in the second presidential debate Sunday that he never sexually assaulted women in the way he boasted about on tape in 2005.
The women who have leveled allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump this week have all said the publication of the 2005 tape and Trump's denial in Sunday's debate prompted them to come forward.
"When I heard the tape of the bus where he is describing how he is a star and he can just pretty much do whatever he wants and they let him and, you know, he can 'grab them by the bleep ... I was just like 'wow, wow, that explains it. That explains what happened to me,'" Anderson told the Post.
The latest allegation is similar to the story of Jessica Leeds, who told CNN's Anderson Cooper -- as well as The New York Times in a story published Wednesday -- that Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt during a flight in the early 1980s.
A People Magazine reporter wrote a story alleging Trump began kissing her without her consent in 2005 when the two were alone at his home in Trump Tower for an interview.
Trump has forcefully denied all of these allegations and has argued that they are part of a conspiratorial effort to sink his campaign.
