WASHINGTON: Stacey Williams alleged this week that former President Donald Trump groped her at Trump Tower in early 1993 as disgraced hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein watched. The former model made the allegation during a video chat of sexual violence survivors supporting Vice President Kamala Harris ‘ campaign.
Williams’ allegation is the latest in a lengthy list of accusations made against Trump, including by E. Jean Carroll, who has been locked in a legal battle with the businessman-turned-president after a jury found him liable in 2023 for sexually assaulting the advice columnist in 1996 and later for defaming her. The allegations against Trump go back decades and include those described in the “Access Hollywood” tape, a 2005 video made public weeks before Election Day 2016 that showed the then-reality television star bragging about grabbing, forcibly kissing and sexually assaulting women.
Williams said on the video call that she met and began seeing Epstein in 1992. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial in New York for a series of sex trafficking charges, sparking rampant conspiracy theories.
The former model said the two were walking down Fifth Avenue in “late winter, early spring” of 1993 when Epstein suggested they “stop by and see Trump.”
“So we went into Trump Tower and went up the elevator. And moments later, Trump was greeting us and he pulled me into him and started groping me,” Williams recalled. “He put his hands all over my breasts, my waist, my butt. And I froze. And I froze because I was so deeply confused about what was happening because the hands were moving all over me.”
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump spokeswoman, called the allegations “unequivocally false” and argued they were politically motivated.
Williams said Epstein and Trump “were, like, smiling at one another and continuing on in their conversation.” At the time of the alleged incident, Trump was in his mid-40s, while Williams was in her mid-20s.
When the two left, Williams said, there was “seething rage” by Epstein, who swiftly began “berating” her once they got to the sidewalk.
“He kept saying, ‘Why did you let him do that? Why did you let him put his hands all over you?’ And he made me feel so disgusting,” she recalled, adding later that she “felt so humiliated and so sick to my stomach and was so upset.”
As she “absorbed what happened,” however, Williams said she felt like there was some “sort of sick bet or game” between Trump and Epstein and that she was “rolled in there like a piece of meat for some kind of challenge or twisted game.”
Williams added that “not long after” that meeting in Trump Tower she received a postcard from Trump. Williams said her agent received the postcard, via courier, from Trump.
Williams’ team provided The Associated Press with images of the postcard. One side is a photo of Palm Beach and Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s resort in Florida, and the other side is writing allegedly from Trump. “Stacey, your home away from home. Love, Donald,” reads the postcard.
The organizer of the Survivors for Harris video call said this week’s meeting was not affiliated with the Harris campaign and was an outside gathering of sexual violence survivors and advocate organizations. The Harris campaign declined Friday to comment on the allegations. A member of Williams’ team said she has had no contact with the Harris campaign.
In an interview with CNN after the video call, Williams called the encounter with Trump “one of the strangest moments of my life.”
“I think I probably was trying to smile and go through the motions of being engaged the way you would in a social situation. But it was an out-of-body experience,” she said. “So, I don’t know if I spoke, I don’t know if I answered questions, I don’t know.”
Although Trump has sought to distance himself from Epstein in recent years, he told New York Magazine in 2002 that he had known “Jeff” for 15 years.
“Terrific guy,” Trump told the magazine. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Trump has faced allegations of sexual misconduct and assault for years, all of which he has denied. Many of these allegations followed the publishing of the “Access Hollywood” tape in 2016. While the moment was perilous for Trump’s campaign, he went on to win the 2016 election and the allegations against him have not slowed his political rise.
Williams told CNN that she chose not to come forward earlier due to family considerations.
“You want to be really, really ready, and I wasn’t,” Williams told the network. “I think there’s an evolution to contending with your abuse, or these types of incidents, and it doesn’t happen overnight.”

LONDON: A group of almost 400 authors have called for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions.

The writers, including Sally Rooney and Arundhati Roy, say Israeli publishers, book festivals and literary agencies that have not spoken out against the war in Gaza are “complicit in genocide.”

The unpublished letter, organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature, claims that the “genocide … is the biggest war on children this century.”

It adds: “Culture has played an integral role in normalizing these injustices. Israeli cultural institutions, often working directly with the state, have been crucial in obfuscating, disguising and art-washing the dispossession and oppression of millions of Palestinians for decades.

“We cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without interrogating their relationship to apartheid and displacement.”

The Fossil Free Books pressure group, which worked to get literary festivals to cut ties with sponsors such as Baillie Gifford over the war earlier this year, is supporting the letter, alongside a number of Booker prize nominees. A full list of signatories is set to be released next week.

“We will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians,” the letter, seen by The Times, said.

“We will not cooperate with Israeli institutions including publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications that are complicit in violating Palestinian rights.”

The move to boycott Israeli cultural institutions has also been criticized, including by “Jack Reacher” author Lee Child, who said writers should not “attack the very people whose hearts are still in the right place,” including Israel’s “only voices for peace and common sense.”

Child said: “They are firm allies in the struggle for an equitable outcome, and to demonise them is to shoot the Palestinian cause in the foot. Personally, I support a full two-state solution, and I’m a pragmatic person, so my instinct is to partner with Israelis who think the same way. Building bridges with them is the way to go. Canceling them is nuts.”

Larry Finlay, a former publishing chief at Transworld books, told The Times: “The target of (the signatories’) ire is just wrong because the people who will suffer from this will be Israelis who are on the left and anti-Netanyahu.

“There is no wisdom for this boycott, which is born out of hatred and antisemitism.”