US President Donald Trump on Monday once again denied allegations by a writer that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, adding: “She’s not my type”.
Mr Trump made the comment in an interview with The Hill, a political news website, that touched on the allegations from E Jean Carroll, who says in her new book that the rape happened in the dressing room of a New York department store.
“I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Mr Trump said in the interview, which was conducted in the Oval Office.
The president added that Ms Carroll was “totally lying” when she made her claims.
“I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her,” he said.
Ms Carroll's account, revealed last week in an excerpt of her new book that was published by New York magazine, makes her at least the 16th woman to have accused Mr Trump of sexual misconduct before he became president.
She said that in a chance encounter at the Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan, Trump – already a prominent property developer – asked her for advice on buying lingerie for an unnamed woman.
Then, jokingly, they each suggested that the other should try the item on.
"The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips," wrote Ms Carroll, a magazine advice columnist for Elle magazine.
Pinning her against the wall, Ms Carroll says, Trump proceeded to pull down her tights, unzip his trousers and penetrate her – all while himself fully dressed – until she finally managed to push him out and run from the dressing room.
On Monday, Carroll told CNN that he “just went at it” after he cornered her.
“It was a fight,” she said.
“With all the 15 women or 16 who have come forward, it’s the same. He denies it. He turns it around. He attacks. And he threatens.”
Carroll never went to the police because, she said, she was afraid of repercussions.
