WASHINGTON // A barrage of accusations that Donald Trump groped or inappropriately kissed women has rocked the race for the White House.
The Republican nominee angrily denied those reports on Wednesday and his campaign has branded them “character assassination”.
Claims by at least five women in accounts reported by The New York Times, NBC, People Magazine and other outlets came to light after Mr Trump said in Sunday's presidential debate with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton that he had never sexually assaulted women.
His denial came as he tried to set his campaign back on track after a video recording from 2005 surfaced a week ago in which the 70-year-old real estate mogul is heard making lewd boasts about how his celebrity meant he could grope women with impunity.
“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
When he meets beautiful women, Mr Trump added, “I just start kissing them.”
Mr Trump has apologised for the comments, dismissing them as “locker room” banter.
With just 27 days until the November 8 election, and Mrs Clinton in the driver’s seat with national polls in her favour, Mr Trump’s free-falling campaign is fueling Republican worries the controversy may seriously damage the party.
Former businesswoman Jessica Leeds, 74, told The New York Times that Mr Trump groped her on a flight in the early 1980s as they sat next to each other in first class.
About 45 minutes after takeoff, Mr Trump lifted the armrest and began touching her chest and tried to put his hand up her skirt, she said.
“He was like an octopus,” she told the daily. “His hands were everywhere.”
“It was an assault,” she added.
Rachel Crooks said she was a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate company in Trump Tower in 2005 when she encountered Mr Trump outside an elevator in the building one morning.
After she introduced herself, he “kissed me directly on the mouth”, she told the daily.
“It was so inappropriate,” Ms Crooks added. “I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that.”
"None of this ever took place," Mr Trump angrily told The New York Times, calling the reporter a "disgusting human being".
Among the accusations, Mindy McGillivray, now 36, alleged that Mr Trump grabbed her at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in early 2003, the Palm Beach Post reported on Wednesday.
She said the incident happened as she was working as a photographer’s assistant at an event. “I was startled. I jumped.”
None of the women reported the incidents to law enforcement.
The New York Times and Palm Beach Post spoke with friends and family of the women, who corroborated their accounts and knew of the incidents before the "hot mic" video was released last week.
Former Miss Utah Temple Taggart McDowell told NBC on Wednesday that Mr Trump kissed her on the lips when she was a 21-year-old contestant in his Miss Universe beauty pageant in 1997.
Asked about last week’s leaked tape, she suppressed tears, saying, “I have a daughter now and it’s really hard because you think of sending your little daughter out there with men like that who think like that.”
The Trump campaign fired back, calling The New York Times article a political attack and demanding a retraction.
ABC News reported three senior-level sources as saying Mr Trump is drafting a lawsuit against the newspaper for defamation.
“Your article is reckless, defamatory and constitutes libel per se,” his lawyer Marc Kasowitz wrote in a letter to the daily.
* Agence France-Presse
