How Convenient: Woman Who Accused Trump Now Running for Office
A woman who previously accused President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct is now running for political office in Ohio — leaving some some wondering whether that had been her original intention all along.
“I think my voice should have been heard then, and I’ll still fight for it to be heard now,” Rachel Crooks, a 35-year-old Democrat, told Cosmopolitan magazine in a post published Monday announcing her decision to seek the state House seat in Ohio’s 88th District. “Americans are really upset with politics as usual, and I want to be a voice for them.”
Sure, except that only a meager 9 percent of all registered U.S. voters believe that all the sexual harassment allegations reported by the news media vis-à-vis Hollywood celebrities and elected officials such as the president are true, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll reported by The Washington Times.
Why? Because evidence has shown that accusers sometimes lie — either out of spite or for monetary gain.
In the case of Trump, for instance, a report from Conservative Tribune published in December revealed that some of the women who accused him of sexual harassment were later compensated for their efforts.
Regarding Crooks’ allegations, in October of 2016 she claimed to The New York Times that during an elevator encounter with Trump in 2005, he had sexually harassed her by attempting to kiss her on the lips.
“Ms. Crooks was a 22-year-old receptionist at Bayrock Group, a real estate investment and development company in Trump Tower in Manhattan, when she encountered Mr. Trump outside an elevator in the building one morning in 2005,” The Times reported.
“Aware that her company did business with Mr. Trump, she turned and introduced herself. They shook hands, but Mr. Trump would not let go, she said. Instead, he began kissing her cheeks. Then, she said, he ‘kissed me directly on the mouth.'”
Lona Burnstein, who claimed to be a family friend of Crooks, later disputed Crooks’ allegations on Facebook, claiming that Crooks is “a big baby” who resented the fact that Trump had not made her into a model.
“She was working as a secretary for some company and she met him that way … he was being nice to her and told he he would contact her for a modeling career and he never did … end of story,” Burnstein wrote, as reported by Got News.
Interestingly, an interview Crooks gave to Vanity Fair magazine just two months ago at least hints that a modeling career was in the conversation.
“Trump kept kissing her on each cheek over and over, in between saying things like, ‘Where are you from? You should be a model. Do you know I have my own agency?,’ and then kissing her on the lips,” the magazine reported, citing Crooks’ testimony.
While it remains unclear whether it was Crooks or Burnstein who told the truth, it should be noted that Trump denied the allegations in 2016 and continues to deny them to this day.
As for Crooks’ candidacy, Cosmopolitan reports that she has strong backing from the state Democrat Party. If she wins the party’s nomination, she’ll be up against incumbent Republican Rep. Bill Reineke in the district outside Toledo. The district went for Trump in the 2016 race.
If she does wind up running against Reineke, I wonder what nickname the president will give her. I’m thinking it might be something like “Crooked Crooks,” but we’ll see.
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