Alabama’s Winners: Those Speaking Out

8 min readDec 13, 2017

Terry H. Schwadron

Dec. 13, 2017

Rachel Crooks says that Donald Trump forcibly kissed her a dozen years ago at Trump Tower, where she was a receptionist. Samantha Holvey, a former Miss USA competitor, told of Trump walking into a dressing room to inspect her and other women. Jessica Leeds said Trump groped her and kissed her on an airplane.

They are the latest #me too women to step up and demand that their unwanted groper face consequences. Only the groper-in-chief this time is Donald Trump, and he, through spokesmen, once again denied it.

They also are among the biggest winners of last night’s dramatic Democratic victory in the Alabama Senate race that say Doug Jones beat alleged serial pedophile Roy Moore because the otherwise political event will spur more interest in their claims against the president. It was clear that charges of sexual improprieties made Moore vulnerable — but it also helps to strengthen the case of women in other cases against powerful men. While there is obvious political from the election, this #metoo campaign will have a yet more lasting set of changes on our society in the long run.

Of course, Trump has denied such groping allegations least 16 other times, just as Moore had denied knowing the women who came forward with information about dating him or being groped by him when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s and working as a DA. Still, the trio told Megan Kelly on television and a press conference on Monday that they have hope that the suddenly changing culture cultural ground surrounding sexual misconduct would force a reckoning for the president.

Once again, they present a believable set of stories, with nothing particularly for any of them to gain.

Their declarations gave a growing number of Democratic congress members led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) to call for Trump to resign, now that they have forced out Sen. Al Franken, (D-Minn), and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), believing that they can present themselves as officially free of sexism, they feel at ease at lobbing a sexism grenade towards the White House.

Still, don’t expect a resignation anytime soon.

Indeed, Trump responded with a tweet that most but folks at the White House found overly personal, sexist and vaguely sexual. Instead of arguing about the main event, the tweet itself became the issue for a day. Ironically or intentionally, all this came about as Alabama was voting .

Futile as the thought is, resignation would be a wonderfully Shakespearean end to the most unliterary president in memory, and a wonderful boost to a still burgeoning movement towards social change. Trump has made it clear that he has specific ideas about what people who work around him should look like, and has said that various candidates — men and women — either do or do not look good for the chosen part. Apparently, he views staffing the White House policy-making ranks as a casting opportunity.

At least 16 women accused Trump during the 2016 campaign of sexual harassment. Trump — he of the Access Hollywood tape — has denied all of the allegations and the White House has said its official position is that all the women were lying. “These false claims, totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts, were addressed at length during last year’s campaign, and the American people voiced their judgment by delivering a decisive victory,” a White House spokesperson said. The White House said the women were motivated by politics in trying to revive their accusations against Trump.

While announcing his resignation last Friday, Franken noted the “irony” of being forced to step aside when “a man who has bragged on tape of his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office.”.

The three women showed disgust with Trump for supporting Alabama Republican candidate Moore. Trump explained his support by noting that Moore had denied the charges.

Generally, the women who had accused Trump have said they spent the past year feeling dismissed and forgotten. “With Trump, it was all brushed under the rug,” Temple Taggart told The New York Times. Taggert said Trump kissed her on the mouth when she was competing in his Miss USA pageant in 1997.

A decision is pending in a New York State Supreme Court lawsuit by Summer Zervos, a contestant on “The Apprentice,” starring Trump, on allowing the lawsuit to proceed while Trump is president. Lawyers in the suit sought a subpoena seeking all Trump campaign records related to his female accusers. If the case advances, the accusers could be deposed, reopening those cases. Trump has sought to dismiss or suspend the case, claiming that a sitting president cannot be sued in state court and that his comments denouncing Zervos and other accusers as liars and Hillary Clinton plants amount to political speech, according to the legal brief filed. Lawyers for Zervos note that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling had allowed Paula Jones to bring a sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton while he was in office.

The accusers got an unlikely boost from UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who, over the weekend, said the women should be heard. In turn, she came in for private Trump criticism.

I wish these latest women good luck, however Sisyphean their efforts. As the Alabama election showed, it would be great if Fortune took Fairness for a walk.