Dem
52
Ties
4
GOP
44
Yesterday, the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released a report covering what they have learned, from their various investigations, about the Epstein files, and Donald Trump's presence therein. And the big news is that yet another woman has accused Trump of having raped her.
The new accusation comes from Beatrice Keul, who is Swiss, and is a former beauty pageant contestant. A couple of years ago, Keul told the Daily Mail that Trump had groped her while she was participating in one of his pageants back in 1993. According to the report released yesterday, she now says that it was, in fact, rape. And unambiguously so. Here is the key passage from the report (it's pretty rough, so proceed with caution):
Later that day, Donald Trump's representative invited Keul to go upstairs at the Plaza Hotel to meet with Trump. Believing this meeting to be a lucky break for the purpose of furthering her career and education, Keul accompanied Trump's representative upstairs. He ushered her into the suite, where upon entering, Trump reportedly grabbed Keul from behind and forcibly raped her; in the process, tearing her dress and causing bleeding and bruising on multiple parts of her body. Keul described the rape as "brutal." Following the assault, according to Keul's report, Trump sat her on the edge of the bed, repeated his promises to arrange for a visa and NYU admission, and made her promise she would keep quiet, saying, "[T]he show must go on."
Keul reports that she finished the pageant in a terrified "daze" as her passport had been taken from her on her arrival. She did not ask for her passport to be returned before the contest was over, lest she indicate to Trump that something was wrong. During the pageant, she was also summoned, along with four other models, to a private audition with John Casablancas, who made her walk for him and made similar promises about taking care of her. She returned to Switzerland, declining to participate in an additional Trump-sponsored pageant in Hawaii several weeks later. Several months after the assault, Trump called Keul in Switzerland and reiterated his offer to set her up with a visa and admission to NYU. She declined.
John Casablancas, who is now deceased, was a modeling agent who palled around with both Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, had a well-known penchant for "barely legal" women (for example, he dated a 16-year-old in a state where that was the age of consent), and was accused of sexual assault on several occasions.
For our part, we believe Keul is telling the truth. First of all, because Trump is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt anymore. He is a court-adjudicated rapist in all but name; as Judge Lewis Kaplan observed from the bench during the E. Jean Carroll case, New York state law of the era in which Trump assaulted Carroll said that rape must involve a penis, and Trump's assault was committed with his fingers. Trump has also been accused of rape by at least five women besides Keul, while the list of women who have accused him of sexual misconduct of any sort is so long there is an entire Wikipedia article titled Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations. As to this specific case, Keul's account lines up with Trump's usual MO. The fact that they took the passports of the international models certainly feels like a trick to trap them and to create "keep this quiet" leverage. That Keul refused to be in Trump's presence again once she had escaped, even though there were potential rewards, also makes her account seem credible.
Of course, the case has not been adjudicated in court, and there is no contemporaneous evidence, since it was more than 30 years ago. Further, a White House spokesperson declared that Keul is lying. That same spokesperson then proceeded to remind reporters that Trump has been "fully exonerated of anything related to Epstein." Since that statement is a 100%, unequivocal, no-question-about-it falsehood, it seems fair to assume that the denial is also a falsehood.
Inasmuch as the case will never be adjudicated in a court of law, since the statue of limitations has long run (and that includes the loophole that allowed Carroll to sue long after her assault), then the question is what will happen in the court of public opinion. Clearly, the House Democrats think this will weaken Trump and the Republican Party heading into next week's elections. It's a little icky to use this for political gain, in such a ham-fisted way, but that's the choice they made.
We pondered the matter all day yesterday, and... we just can't see how this could possibly move the needle in a meaningful way. First, because Trump himself is not on the ballot. Second, because attitudes about Trump's sexual misconduct, and Republican enabling thereof, surely have to be baked in at this point, right? Anyone who thinks Trump is a serial sexual assaulter does not need any more evidence. And anyone who thinks he isn't is surrounded by a powerful reality distortion field that isn't going to be pierced by accuser #28 (give or take). Because we just cannot conceive of this having an impact, we almost didn't write this news up. But it seemed problematic to ignore it, and maybe readers will reach a different conclusion from us about the effect of the new revelations. (Z)