Jessica Leeds, the sexual assault accuser of Donald Trump, says she “laughed out loud” when the former president recently disputed her sworn testimony. She alleged that he grabbed her, tried to kiss her and put his hand up her skirt on a plane in the 1970s, claiming that “she would not have been the chosen one.”
“He attacked me 50 years ago and he continues to attack me today,” Leeds said alongside her lawyers at a news conference in New York on Monday. “It was like he had 47 arms — like an octopus, but he didn’t make a sound.”
Her comments came after Trump appeared at an appeals hearing in the sexual abuse case brought by E. Jean Carroll. The jury found Trump guilty of sexual abuse and defamation of Carroll.
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Leeds, 82, came forward in 2016 and later testified in the Carroll trial, which centered on Carroll’s testimony that the Republican candidate in the November election had assaulted her in a department store in the 1990s. That set the tone for Trump to mount a lengthy defense against both Carroll and Leeds.
Regarding Leeds, Trump said it was a “completely made up story” that “never happened,” and insinuated the city supported Democrats.
“And honestly — I know you’re going to say it’s a horrible thing to say — but it couldn’t have happened. It didn’t happen. And she wouldn’t have been the chosen one.”
Leeds has accused Trump of groping her in the first class section of a plane. She said she pushed him away and went to the back of the plane. During her press conference, she said she later bumped into him, prompting him to exclaim, “I remember you,” before calling her a derogatory word.
Trump, in turn, said: “Think about the impracticality of this. I’m famous — I’m on a plane. People get on the plane, and I look at a woman, and I grab her and start kissing her and making out with her. What are the chances of that happening?”
Leeds’ claim first surfaced shortly after Trump debated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before winning the 2016 presidential election. During that campaign, hot-mic footage obtained by Access Hollywood captured Trump saying, “I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet, just kiss, I don’t even wait. When you’re a star, they just let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Leeds told The New York Times at the time that she believed “his behavior is deeply ingrained in his character.”
“I wish those who would vote for him would think about this,” Leeds said.
Leeds said Monday that she and her lawyers were considering “a number of options” after Trump’s comments on Friday, which she described as “bizarre.”
She added that Trump “has no respect for women” and should not be re-elected as president.
“The bottom line is he doesn’t understand that he is a sexual predator,” she said.
Trump is wrestling with a number of other lawsuits in addition to Carroll’s as he runs against Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 White House race. Those include three charges related to efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, as well as his withholding of classified documents after his presidency.
Meanwhile, he was convicted in May of falsifying corporate records to conceal hush-money payments to a porn actor who alleged he had an extramarital sexual encounter with him about a decade before he won the presidential election.
