Comparing Trump's and Biden's sexual assault allegations

Three other women have made claims of non-penetrative sexual battery in court. The first comes from Jill Harth. Unlike the bulk of Trump’s accusers, Harth first alleged that Trump groped her long before he entered politics. Harth, who along with her then-boyfriend and business partner George Houraney had established a working relationship with Trump, filed a lawsuit against Trump in 1997, alleging that Trump had repeatedly made unwanted advances toward her, but most alarmingly that in 1993 he had forced her into a bedroom to try and have sex with her, forcibly touching her genitals. It’s unclear what other independent corroboration backs Harth’s allegations, and it’s possible that someone could have been motivated to falsely accuse Trump in court for financial gain. But no one can accuse Harth of having political motivations. Supporting her allegation is that Houraney, with whom she no longer speaks, independently corroborated her account to Nicholas Kristof in 2016. Compromising it is that Harth had an axe to grind after Trump reneged on a business agreement and that they briefly dated in 1998. Kristof is convinced Harth is telling the truth, though it seems that until further investigation produces other contemporaneously corroborating witnesses, Harth’s claim is not quite credible and definitely not proven.

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The other two women who have accused Trump of sexual battery in court are Summer Zervos and Alva Johnson. Zervos, a registered Republican and former contestant on The Apprentice, claims that Trump aggressively groped and kissed her in a 2007 meeting at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Phone records and Trump’s calendar do indicate that Trump and Zervos were communicating and met as she said they did, and evidence indicates that Zervos was seeking legal assistance from eventual attorney — and later foe — Gloria Allred as early as 2011. Zervos’s official court filings also claim that she told friends about Trump’s battery after the fact. Zervos’s claim is certainly credible, and if only reporters independently got contemporaneously corroborating witnesses on the record, it’s hard to see how this claim wouldn’t meet the preponderance of evidence.

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