Former Trump campaign staffer alleges he forcibly kissed her
Niraj Chokshi | NYT News Service | Feb 27, 2019, 06:58 IST
A woman who worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign sued him in federal court on Monday, alleging that he forcibly kissed her at a campaign event in Florida months before the election.
In the lawsuit, the woman, Alva Johnson, who is black, also accused the president’s campaign of discriminating against her by paying her less than her white and male colleagues. She joins more than a dozen other women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
According to the lawsuit Trump kissed Johnson without her consent on August 24, 2016, in Tampa as he got out of a recreational vehicle during a campaign stop. The encounter began when Johnson, who was in the RV, spoke with Trump as he made his way to the door of the vehicle, according to the suit. She told him that she had spent months on the road working for him and offered words of encouragement.
Trump then shook her hand firmly, promised that he wouldn’t forget her and leaned in “close enough that she could feel his breath on her skin”, according to her lawsuit. As soon as she realised what was happening, it states, Johnson turned her head, but Trump still kissed her on the corner of the mouth.
“It was distressing to her,” Hassan Zavareei, Johnson’s lawyer, said on Monday. “Shortly afterward, she called her significant other and her parents to tell them what had happened and was very upset and was in tears.”
All three confirmed to The Washington Post and The New Yorker that Johnson had indeed told them about the encounter at the time. “I immediately felt violated because I wasn’t expecting it or wanting it,” Johnson told The Post.
The White House disputed the account. “This accusation is absurd on its face,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, told reporters. “This never happened and is directly contradicted by multiple highly credible eyewitness accounts.”
In the lawsuit, the woman, Alva Johnson, who is black, also accused the president’s campaign of discriminating against her by paying her less than her white and male colleagues. She joins more than a dozen other women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
According to the lawsuit Trump kissed Johnson without her consent on August 24, 2016, in Tampa as he got out of a recreational vehicle during a campaign stop. The encounter began when Johnson, who was in the RV, spoke with Trump as he made his way to the door of the vehicle, according to the suit. She told him that she had spent months on the road working for him and offered words of encouragement.
Trump then shook her hand firmly, promised that he wouldn’t forget her and leaned in “close enough that she could feel his breath on her skin”, according to her lawsuit. As soon as she realised what was happening, it states, Johnson turned her head, but Trump still kissed her on the corner of the mouth.
“It was distressing to her,” Hassan Zavareei, Johnson’s lawyer, said on Monday. “Shortly afterward, she called her significant other and her parents to tell them what had happened and was very upset and was in tears.”
All three confirmed to The Washington Post and The New Yorker that Johnson had indeed told them about the encounter at the time. “I immediately felt violated because I wasn’t expecting it or wanting it,” Johnson told The Post.
The White House disputed the account. “This accusation is absurd on its face,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, told reporters. “This never happened and is directly contradicted by multiple highly credible eyewitness accounts.”
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