During the final leg of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump dismissed the dozen or so women who had recently accused him of sexual assault and misconduct as liars.
For starters, they were too ugly to be sexually assaulted. He claimed he didn’t even know them, despite the fact that one interviewed him on the record for a story and another had been a Celebrity Apprentice contestant.
“All of these women will be sued after the election,” Trump vowed.
On Friday, celebrity attorney Gloria Allred goaded President-elect Trump to deliver on his word during a press conference in Los Angeles with Summer Servos, the Celebrity Apprentice contestant who claims Trump made inappropriate sexual advances towards her in 2007 when she was vying for a job at the Trump Organization.
Servos said her business had suffered since Trump called her a liar, and that despite enduring threats, bullying, and other repercussions “all because I chose to speak the truth,” she’s not backing down.
Servos shuddered as she called on Trump to retract his threat to sue her and his other accusers.
“Even though it’s hard and painful to go up against the world’s most powerful man, I will continue to speak the truth and I refuse to be intimidated into silence,” Servos said in prepared statements. “The truth is always the right option and will win out in the end,” she concluded before sobbing into Allred’s shoulder.
Allred stated that she has “no present intent” to bring a lawsuit against Mr. Trump, but that if he sues his accusers she’ll recommend that they “consider filing a lawsuit against him for defamation.”
Of all the lofty promises Trump has made that either threaten democracy or highlight his misogynistic, xenophobic rhetoric, legal experts say it’s unlikely he’ll act on this one.
“[Trump] would have to deal with the law as it is, not as he would like it to be,” Michael Gerhardt, a professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill, told The Daily Beast earlier this week.
“Truth is a defense,” Gerhardt said, and evidence gathered during litigation wouldn’t just be humiliating for President Trump but “could warrant an impeachment.”
Allred’s daughter, attorney Lisa Bloom, also represents several Trump accusers and has threatened to depose Trump if he files suit against her client Jill Harth, who told the New York Times that Trump made numerous unwanted advances on her while he was married to Marla Maples, including one time in his daughter Ivanka’s bedroom.
“I was admiring the decoration, and next thing I know he’s pushing me against a wall and has his hands all over me,” Harth said, stressing that she protested as he tried to kiss her before she ran out of the room.
In a statement several weeks ago, Bloom said she would “subpoena [Trump’s] business and personal records as well as any recordings that may exist in which he brags about sexual assault, such as the Access Hollywood recording and potentially, the Apprentice raw footage.”
On Friday, Allred cited Paula Jones’ lawsuit against then-President Bill Clinton as a precedent for a potential defamation suit against Trump, noting that Jones' suit “did proceed while he was in office for actions prior to him becoming president.”
But she and Servos had not called a press conference to “talk about impeachment;” they were simply asking President Trump to act presidential.
“Will he seize the opportunity and accept my challenge? We will await the president elect’s response.”
If Trump did not retract his threat to sue his accusers, Allred said the answer was “simple.”
“In the third debate with Hillary, Mr. Trump was asked by Chris Wallace what he would do if he lost the election,” Allred said. “Chris Wallace asked him if he would concede to the winner in part for the good of the country.
“Mr. Trump responded: ‘What I am saying is that I will tell you at that time. I will keep you in suspense, okay?’
“My response to the question of what we will do if Mr. Trump does not retract his threat to sue the accusers is the same as Mr. Trump’s response in the debate. ‘What I am saying is that I will tell you at the time. I will keep you in suspense, okay?’”