The Hill has a story today detailing some behind-the-scenes negotiations between a would-be Trump accuser and attorney Lisa Bloom. The story is based on documents, including texts, gathered by one woman who considered coming forward prior to the election to accuse Trump of making some kind of pass toward her. In exchange, she wanted money to relocate and to send her daughter to college. Over a series of weeks, the amount of money discussed climbed from $10,000 to $750,000. The money being offered came from unidentified donors.
The woman told The Hill in an interview that Bloom initially approached her in early October through [Trump accuser Jill] Harth. She said she considered coming forward with her account of an unsolicited advance by Trump solely to support her friend Harth, and not because she had any consternation with Trump, who ended the advance when she asked him to stop, she said.
The woman said Bloom initially offered a $10,000 donation to the woman’s favorite church, an account backed up by text messages the two exchanged…
By early November, the woman said, Bloom’s offers of money from donors had grown to $50,000 to be paid personally to her, and then even higher.
“Another donor has reached out to me offering relocation/security for any woman coming forward. I’m trying to reach him,” Bloom texted the woman on Nov. 3, 2016. Later she added, “Call me I have good news.”…
The figured jumped to $200,000 in a series of phone calls with Bloom that week, according to the woman. The support was promised to be tax-free and also included changing her identity and relocating, according to documents and interviews.
Lisa Bloom confirmed to the hill that the unnamed accuser eventually asked for $2 million dollars to come forward prior to the election, an amount Bloom described as a “non-starter.” Bloom told the Hill, “We did relay her security concerns to donors, but none were willing to offer more than a number in the low six figures.”
The woman was apparently ready to give a press conference a few days before the election but then she somehow wound up in the hospital (it’s not explained in the story). Bloom took a flight from California to the east coast and met up the woman on Nov. 6 where the potential accuser claims Bloom made a last-ditch offer of $750,000. So who are these deep-pocketed donors? Neither the unnamed woman nor Jill Harth knows who the donors were and Bloom isn’t saying. In one text exchange, the woman asked if money was available from a Clinton Super-PAC. Bloom replied that she had already “reached out” but said they weren’t paying:
“It’s my understanding that there is some Clinton Super Pack [sic] that could help out if we did move forward,” the woman wrote Bloom on Oct. 11, 2016. “If we help the Clinton campaign they in turn could help or compensate us?”
Bloom wrote back, “Let’s please do a call. I have already reached out to Clinton Super PACs and they are not paying. I can get you paid for some interviews however.”
Bloom took the cases pro bono but had the women sign an agreement that said her law firm would collect 33% of any money made from interview compensation. Jill Harth, who had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Trump in 1997 which became public in 2016, praised Bloom’s work on her behalf. She says she didn’t ask for money to tell her story but Bloom did arrange for a donor to pay off the remaining mortgage on her Queens apartment, an amount described as under $30,000.
Finally, as to why this unnamed accuser is coming forward now to dump on Lisa Bloom, she says that although she supported Trump and has friends in his circle no one from his camp induced her to speak. Instead, she claims she was motivated by her disgust at Bloom’s decision to defend Harvey Weinstein. “I couldn’t understand how she could say she was for people like me and then represent someone like him,” she tells the Hill.
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