(L-R) Rachel Crooks, a former receptionist in Trump Tower, Jessica Leeds and Samantha Holvey, a former Miss North Carolina, exit a news conference for the film “16 Women and Donald Trump,” which focuses on women who have publicly accused President Trump of sexual misconduct. December 11, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Andrew Kelly
More than 50 female democrat lawmakers in the US House of Representatives called on Monday for a congressional investigation into allegations by various women of sexual misconduct against President Donald Trump, who has denied the accusations.
“We cannot ignore the multitude of women who have come forward with accusations against Mr Trump,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter, though a formal inquiry was unlikely to result because republicans control the agenda in Congress.
The letter, spearheaded by the Democratic Women’s Working Group, which is composed of all the party’s female members in the House, was signed by 56 lawmakers. It followed a call earlier on Monday by three women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct for a congressional investigation into his behaviour.
The lawmakers’ request for a probe was sent to leaders of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the main investigative committee in the House.
Over the past two years, more than a dozen women have accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances towards them in the years before he entered politics. Monday’s letter from the democrats said there were at least 17 accusers and listed names.
“The president’s own remarks appear to back up the allegations,” the letter said, saying Trump had boasted “that he feels at liberty to perpetrate such conduct against women.”
“The president should be allowed to present evidence in his own defence,” said the lawmakers.
The letter was addressed to Congressional Oversight Panel chairman Trey Gowdy, a republican, and top democrat Elijah Cummings.
Last year, Trump apologised for talking about groping women in a 2005 tape recording that surfaced weeks before the presidential election, saying he had not actually done the things he spoke about.
More recently, Trump has told allies that the voice on the recording was not his, the New York Times reported recently.
Trump and White House officials have denied the sexual misconduct allegations against him, some of which date back to the 1980s.
“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 in a statement on Monday.
(Reuters)