In the week since The New York Times reported that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein had paid off a number of women who accused him of sexually harassing them, we have witnessed one of the most dramatic falls of a celebrity in recent memory.
Within three days, he’d been fired by his own company. By the time this week had ended, he had been kicked out of the British and American film academies, faced multiple investigations on both sides of the Atlantic, and had become an international pariah.
Weinstein’s rapid and near-total destruction has another set of victims wondering if they will ever get justice. Namely, the dozen or so women who have publicly accused Donald Trump of harassing them. Buzzfeed’s Kendall Taggart and Jessica Garrison spoke with three of those women last week.
One of them, Melinda “Mindy” McGillivray, spoke for all of Trump’s accusers when she said she felt deflated at Trump’s upset victory. As she put it, when Trump won, “I felt like I lost.” McGillivray first came forward last October, claiming that Trump had “grabbed my ass” at a 2003 Ray Charles concert at Mar-a-Lago. Watch her tell her story to the AP here.
McGillivray said she was forced into hiding after coming forward–a sharp contrast to Weinstein’s accusers. She believes that Weinstein’s accusers “have more credibility than I do” because most of them are celebrities.
Soon after McGillivray spoke up, Temple Taggart McDowell, Miss Utah USA 1997, claimed that Trump kissed her on the lips during a rehearsal for the Miss USA pageant in Shreveport. Watch her tell her story here.
McDowell claims that Trump kissed her another time a few months later. She had been invited to Trump Tower by the Donald himself, and claims that Trump kissed her in front of two chaperones and a receptionist. According to McDowell, the chaperones were so shaken by what they saw that they warned her never to enter a room with Trump alone.
Like most of the accusers, McDowell was kicked up, down, and sideways on social media, with many of them accusing her of making the whole thing up in order to throw the election to Hillary Clinton. The criticism grew particularly heated when Trump threatened to sue his accusers for libel. Here are examples of some of the bile she faced.
https://twitter.com/bubsgammy/status/792157295991885825
Temple Taggart going to lose her was when she gets slapped with Trump's lawsuit. Said she is ready for this battle. Can't defend fantasies.
— SGT USMC (@r98121261) October 29, 2016
While McDowell was “thrilled” to see Weinstein cut down to size, it reminded her of the disappointment she felt when Trump wasn’t derailed last year. She saw it as a reminder of “why women don’t come forward.”
When Trump declared during the second presidential debate that he never touched a woman without permission, Jessica Leeds felt compelled to speak up. She claimed that Trump had groped her while they were flying first class in the 1980s. The next day, Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs, an ardent Trump supporter, shared a tweet from another Trump supporter that linked to a site doxxing Leeds.
Dobbs later tweeted an apology, but the damage was done; Leeds was bombarded with ugly and threatening phone calls for several months. Nonetheless, Leeds doesn’t regret speaking up, but was “truly sorry it didn’t have more impact.”
There’s a chance that Trump’s accusers may finally have some impact a year later. In case you missed it, former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos subpoenaed Trump for all records related to accusations that Trump committed sexual assault–including those related to McGillivray, McDowell, and Leeds’ claims.
For his part, Trump hasn’t commented beyond this tweet he fired off last year as the women came forward.
Nothing ever happened with any of these women. Totally made up nonsense to steal the election. Nobody has more respect for women than me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2016
But one has to wonder if Trump has a guilty conscience about something. After all, since Buzzfeed’s story went live on Saturday afternoon, we have yet to see any angry tweets from Trump. It’s hard not to wonder–between this story and Zervos’ subpoena, does he feel the walls closing in around him?
(featured image courtesy Michael Vadon, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)
