Before the Russia investigation, then-candidate Donald Trump faced a slew of controversies, including multiple allegations of sexual assault, harassment and rape. Jane Doe, who alleged Trump and Jeffrey Epstein raped her when she was 13, dropped the suit. Others were either dropped or settled years prior, but a former Apprentice contestant and her legal team are not going anywhere.
Summer Zervos, a contestant on season five of The Apprentice, alleges that she was sexually assaulted by Trump and subpoenaed all documents from his campaign pertaining to “any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.”
Weeks before the 2016 election, Zervos accused Trump of assaulting her when she went to his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007 to discuss a possible job at the Trump Organization. Trump called the accusation “lies, lies, lies.”
“When I arrived he kissed me on the lips,” Zervos said in January. Per her lawsuit, Trump “kissed [Zervos] on the mouth repeatedly, he touched her breast, and he pressed his genitals up against her.” The president has refuted these claims and called Zervos’ version of events “totally made-up nonsense.”
Zervos then sued Trump for defamation and President Trump’s legal team argued unsuccessfully that a sitting president is exempt from civil suits.
Zervos and her lawyers, including high-powered Gloria Allred, asked for all documents pertaining to any of the sexual assault allegations made by other women during the campaign.
The subpoena seeks “all documents concerning any accusations that were made during Donald J. Trump’s election campaign for president, that he subjected any woman to unwanted sexual touching and/or sexually inappropriate behavior.”
Zervos first filed a subpoena in March that includes Trump’s campaign organization and any related “directors, officers, partners, shareholders, managers, attorneys, employees, agents and representatives,” BuzzFeed reported.
The subpoena made it to court files last month, but not before Trump’s team filed a motion to dismiss calling the suit politically motivated and claiming Allred is just seeking information to use against Trump in an impeachment hearing.
“The subpoena was served, but we agreed with the campaign to adjourn their response date until after the motion to dismiss is decided, as long as they gave us assurances that the documents be preserved (which they did.),” Allred told NBC News via email.
According to BuzzFeed, Allred released a statement: “We are hopeful that the court will deny President Trump’s motion to dismiss, so that we may move forward with discovery and obtain relevant documents and testimony.”
When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer paralleled the accusations against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and No. 45, RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney called the comparison “disrespectful to the president.”
