Warriors head coach Steve Kerr feels the government needs to play a bigger role in preventing gun violence. USA TODAY Sports
Ex-NFL player Jonathan Martin was detained at a Los Angeles-area hospital where he went to seek treatment Friday after his threatening Instagram post led to his former high school closing for the day, a person familiar with the situation told USA TODAY Sports.
Martin was trying to check himself into the hospital, according to the person who was not authorized to speak publicly.
“The individual believed to be responsible for the social media post is being detained, however he is not in police custody,” the LAPD said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports on Friday night. “The investigation is continuing, but rest assured we believe there is no threat to any school in the LA area.”
Harvard-Westlake, a private high school in a Los Angeles suburb, was shut down Friday after threats posted to social media.
San Diego-based defense attorney M. Dod Ghassemkhani told USA TODAY Sports that when an individual is listed as detained, but not in police custody, it typically means one of two things: a psychiatric or medical hold.
“A psychiatric or medical hold means he’s going to be evaluated at a medical facility,” Ghassemkhani said. “If it’s a psychiatric hold, the person can be held indefinitely until they are deemed healthy enough to be booked into custody.”
The LAPD has not stated the reason for Martin’s detainment.
Psychiatric holds, under section 5150 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code, are utilized when it’s been determined a person “is a danger to others, or to himself or herself.”
The hold likely would only delay an arrest, Ghassemkhani said. If Martin were to be charged with making criminal threats, that could be either a misdemeanor or felony, according to Section 422 of the California Penal Code.
The shutdown of Harvard-Westlake comes a week after 17 people were killed in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla.
Students at Harvard-Westlake High in Studio City received an alert before school began stating the school was closed. Los Angeles police spokesperson Tony Kuey told USA TODAY Sports that officers from the department’s North Hollywood division responded to the school “after an Instagram post by a former student who is now an adult.”
Kuey said the department was unable to publicly confirm that Martin’s Instagram stories post was what caused the shutdown.
“When you’re a bully victim a coward, your options are suicide or revenge,” Martin wrote in a photo of a shotgun with shells around it posted to his verified Instagram account. He used the hashtags #HarvardWestlake and #Miami Dolphins.
A person who identified himself as Gus Martin, the name of Jonathan Martin’s father, said the family had no comment when reached via phone by USA TODAY Sports on Friday.
Martin attended Harvard-Westlake before playing at Stanford and was drafted by the Miami Dolphins. In 2013, he accused then-Dolphins teammate Richie Incognito of bullying, leading to Incognito’s suspension.
Martin tagged Incognito and another former Dolphins teammate (Mike Poucey) in the post. He also tagged James Dunleavy, who attended Harvard-Westlake and was a walk-on basketball player at USC.
“Last evening, we learned of an Internet post that mentions Harvard-Westlake by name,” Harvard-Westlake said in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, and because the safety of our students, faculty, and staff is our top priority, we made the decision to close school today. We are working closely with law enforcement and will share more information when we are able.”
During a meandering speech Friday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference, President Trump doubled down on arming some teachers and school personnel after last week’s shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school that killed 17 people.
His comments were nearly identical to what National Rifle Association leaders proposed during the three-day annual CPAC conference on Thursday, hammering home that the fight to protect the Second Amendment could be in danger if Democrats are successful in the 2018 elections this fall.
“People get complacent. You’re happy and you just won. Don’t be complacent,” Trump warned attendees about the usual voter drop-off for the party in power in a president’s first midterms.
“They’ll take away your Second Amendment,” Trump claimed of Democrats, “which we will never allow that.”
Trump then asked the crowd which they’d rather have — their Second Amendment rights or the tax cuts that Republicans recently passed. The deafening applause overwhelmingly came down on the side of gun rights.
The president expanded on his push to arm some school officials as a way to curtail more mass shootings, using almost verbatim language to what NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre told the crowd on Thursday — if banks, government buildings, airports and the like are so heavily armed and protected, shouldn’t schools be the same way?
“This would be a major deterrent because these people are inherently cowards,” Trump said of perpetrators of school shootings. “If this guy thought that people would be shooting bullets back at him, he wouldn’t have gone there.”
Trump reiterated that he’s not talking about arming all teachers — only people who are “adept” at using firearms, such as ex-military personnel or policemen.
“I’d rather have somebody who loves their students and wants to protect them. … And the teacher would have shot the hell out of him,” Trump said of the Florida shoooting.
Trump also got applause from the crowd for strengthening background checks, though he didn’t mention another proposal he has hinted he would support: raising the age of purchase for some guns such as semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21. Florida Gov. Rick Scott proposed such a change on Friday.
Despite being open to some proposals that the gun rights lobby has opposed, Trump has enjoyed deep support from the NRA. He has called group leaders “great people” and “patriots” in recent days and said Friday morning on the way to the conference, “The NRA wants to do the right thing.”
The majority of Trump’s speech, apart from his comments on guns and a response to Parkland, was a stemwinder that touched on many of his greatest hits of the 2016 campaign. The president admitted he was about to throw out most of his prepared remarks, and that’s exactly what he did — barely mentioning what was supposed to be a major part of the speech, new sanctions on North Korea. His comments on the topic came as almost a postscript at the end of his 75-minute address.
Instead, Trump began to relive his victory almost 16 months ago over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, as the crowd broke into predictable chants of “Lock her up!” The chorus came a day after the announcement of more charges against two former top Trump campaign aides, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, as part of Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Gates is expected to plead guilty.
Another familiar topic: the border wall. “You’re getting the wall, don’t worry — I heard you,” Trump promised of his vaunted Southern border wall, as chants of “Build the wall!” rang out. Absent was the campaign-trail call and response that Mexico would pay for the wall — because that country has insisted it will not, and Trump is now seeking congressional funds to build it.
“They’re not giving us their best people, folks,” Trump said. “I want people coming into this country based on merit.”
That segued into a recitation of “The Snake” — a controversial campaign-trail classic where he read the lyrics of a song that details how a woman takes in a sick snake only to have the reptile then bite and kill her. Trump has used it as an allegory for letting in dangerous immigrants who would then harm U.S. citizens.
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in,” Trump crescendoed at the end of his reading, to applause.
Trump also reiterated his call for standing for the national anthem — an allusion to his criticism of NFL athletes for kneeling as a form of protest against police brutality. He railed against “fake news,” too, frequently chiding journalists at the back of the room.
While much of his speech was used to check off his accomplishments over the past year, from slashing regulations to appointing conservative justices to getting his tax bill passed, there was one failure Trump just couldn’t let go — the GOP’s inability to deliver on its long-held promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
There is one person on whom he clearly still puts the blame — Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who helped vote down the Senate bill last summer.
Trump didn’t mention McCain by name, but it was clear his criticism — along with boos from the crowd — was directed toward the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, who has been diagnosed with brain cancer.
“Who was that? I don’t know,” Trump said. “I don’t want to be controversial so I won’t use his name.”
The conservative annual gathering was once skeptical of Trump, a former Democrat. But now Trump has delivered not only the White House but control of the House and Senate as well.
That formerly libertarian-leaning conference’s transformation toward a full embrace of Trump began last year, as members of Trump’s team took the stage, comparing him to the movement’s idol, former President Ronald Reagan.
A year later, almost all the major speakers come from Trump’s administration and Cabinet or are top allies. Once-prominent draws such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., or his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, were nowhere to be found. Congressional leaders such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., didn’t attend either. The one former Trump foe who was on the schedule was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, once known as “Lyin’ Ted” but who has since appeared to mend fences with the president.
Instead, there was a sense of unity projected throughout the conference, which was dotted by attendees wearing the president’s signature “Make America Great Again” hats and his branded political merchandise for sale in the exhibit area.
That evolution is something Trump seemed to even relish in Friday’s address.
“Remember when I first started running and people said, ‘Are you sure he’s a conservative?’ I think we’ve proved I’m a conservative,” he said.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Court documents say the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has found a nude and partially nude photo of a woman the agency believes were taken with the phone of Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s former bodyguard.
The photos are referenced in an affidavit seeking possession of Barry’s cellphone. The phone was obtained and then turned over to a third party Thursday for analysis.
The affidavit says the photos were found in Forrest’s work email.
It also says the TBI has found 260 deleted chats between Forrest’s phone and Barry’s phone number as well as 35 deleted call logs.
“I mean, frankly, if I wanted to pull our people from California, you would have a crime mess like you’ve never seen in California,” Trump said. “You’d be inundated. You would see crime like no one’s ever seen crime in this country. And yet we get no help from the state of California. They’re doing a lousy management job, they have the highest taxes in the nation, and they don’t know what’s happening out there.”
The governor of Texas decided today to spare the life of a convicted killer who carried out a plot to kill his parents and his brother.
About 40 minutes before the scheduled execution, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he would grant clemency to 38-year-old Thomas “Bart” Whitaker. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, in a rare recommendation, voted unanimously Tuesday in favor of the “lesser penalty” of commuting Whitaker’s death sentence to life behind bars without the possibility of parole.
“In just over three years as governor, I have allowed 30 executions. I have not granted a commutation of a death sentence until now,” Abbott said in a statement. “The murders of Mr. Whitaker’s mother and brother are reprehensible. The crime deserves severe punishment for the criminals who killed them. The recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, and my action on it, ensures Mr. Whitaker will never be released from prison.”
Bart Whitaker was convicted of capital murder for the shooting deaths of his mother, Tricia Whitaker, and his younger brother, Kevin Whitaker, in an attack he devised at the family’s Sugar Land, Texas, home in December 2003. Bart’s father, Kent Whitaker, was also shot during the attack, but survived.
Kent Whitaker said he has forgiven his son and became his most outspoken advocate.
“I love him. He’s my son,” Kent Whitaker told “20/20.” “I don’t want to see him executed at the hands of Texas in the name of justice when there’s a better justice available.”
Watch the full story on “20/20” FRIDAY, Feb. 23 at 10 p.m. ET
Courtesy Kent WhitakerKent Whitaker with his son, Bart, in prison. Bart masterminded the attack that killed his family.
On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, in a rare recommendation, voted unanimously in favor of the “lesser penalty” of commuting Whitaker’s death sentence to life behind bars without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutor Fred Felcman, who was also the original prosecutor in the case, told ABC’s Houston station KTRK on Tuesday that he was disappointed by the parole board’s recommendation.
“I guess the 12 jurors’ opinion means nothing to the parole board,” Felcman said.
“20/20” sat down with Kent Whitaker awhile he awaited the board’s decision on his son’s fate. He said that Bart has learned Spanish in prison and was teaching some inmates English, while helping others earn their high school diplomas.
“I have seen such change in him,” Kent Whitaker said of his son. “He’s been incarcerated for 11 years. That’s 4,000 days. He’s done a lot of work himself and he’s struggled hard to try to find out what it was that went wrong in his mind.”
“There’s a mental illness issue here that we still don’t quite understand,” the father added. “But he has learned how to recognize the danger points and to work around them. I want the opportunity to spend years watching him grow. And there’s so much that he can do.”
Family Handout via AFP/Getty ImagesKent Whitaker and his son Bart are during a visit to Bart’s prison in Polunsky, Texas in October 2016.
Kent Whitaker said he recognizes the horrible crime his son committed, saying, “I live with it every day… and nobody’s denying it.”
“Forgiveness is absolutely critical if you want to heal from your loss,” he continued. “It is the only way that you can get the bitterness out, and the bitterness is going to stay there and it’s going to affect your relationships in ways that you can’t even see or recognize. But it’s going to negatively affect them. I was able to forgive on the night of the shootings.”
On Dec. 10, 2003, Bart Whitaker announced to his family that he had finished his final exams at Sam Houston State University and would be graduating. To honor his achievement, his parents presented him with a Rolex watch. That night, the family went to a popular Cajun restaurant to celebrate.
Photos taken from that night show Bart smiling for the camera, but he told “20/20” in a 2009 interview that he knew at that moment that an intruder had entered their home and was waiting for their return. If everything went according to his plan, his brother, mother and father would all be dead within minutes.
Fort Bend County, TexasBart Whitaker, right, is pictured with his mother, Trisha, and brother, Kevin, at his graduation celebration dinner in December 2003. Trisha and Kevin died later that night in an attack planned by Bart.
“I don’t really know a better term for how I was feeling [that night], other than I was on auto-pilot. I wasn’t even aware of myself,” Bart Whitaker told “20/20” in 2009.
“I wanted them dead,” he added. “It was my idea.”
Fort Bend County, TexasBart Whitaker, right, is pictured with his mother, Trisha, and brother, Kevin, at his graduation celebration dinner in December 2003. Trisha and Kevin died later that night in an attack planned by Bart.
When the family arrived home, Bart, knowing what awaited his family inside, ran down the driveway, saying he needed to grab his cell phone out of his car. Kevin Whitaker, 19, was the first one to open the door and was shot in the chest, then his mother followed and was also shot.
Next, his father was wounded, too — he was shot through the right chest and arm, breaking his humerus bone.
Bart said he then ran into the house and pretended to try and catch the shooter. They wrestled a bit and then Bart was shot in the arm to make him appear to be a victim.
“It was to distance me from the guilt,” he told “20/20” in 2009. “But also I think on an internal level it was me realizing that there was no way that I could come out of this physically unscathed.”
Kevin and Tricia both died from their gunshot wounds. Kent and Bart both survived. Investigators would later discover that Bart had never graduated Sam Houston State University and was still listed as a freshman on academic probation.
When they were released from the hospital, Bart moved back home to be with his father, where they spent time together reading the Bible.
The investigation made little progress, until a man named Adam Hipp walked into the Sugar Land police station and introduced himself as a former friend of Bart Whitaker’s. Hipp told police Bart had hatched a second, previously unknown murder plot that was aborted at the last minute, but Hipp claimed Whitaker had asked him to be the shooter.
Another break in the case came in August 2005, when a man named Steven Champagne, who was Bart’s former co-worker and neighbor, went to police and confessed to assisting in the crime and provided the entire story of what happened on that December 2003 night.
Champagne told investigators that Bart had set up the crime and lured his family to dinner to celebrate his fake graduation from college. As the Whitakers celebrated, Champagne said he watched from a car in the parking lot.
Meanwhile, Bart’s roommate, Chris Brashear, hid in Bart’s SUV outside the Whitaker home. Champagne told police Brashear entered the house with the key and disabled the alarm with the code Bart had given him. Champagne said he followed the family home and parked on a nearby street and waited.
“[Brashear] said Bart’s brother had walked in first,” Champagne recalled in his confession. “And, when Chris shot him, he said before he shot him he thought he smiled. And then Chris shot his mom and then shot Bart’s dad …. And then, he acted like he wrestled around with Bart and shot Bart.”
A minute later, as he told cops, Brashear joined him in the car and they fled the scene.
“Bart said his family was worth a lot of money,” Champagne said, explaining his motivation. “He said he would give us some money — I mean millions of dollars.”
He also told police that he and Brashear had thrown a bag full of evidence off of a bridge into a nearby lake. A police dive team later found a soggy duffel bag full of decomposing evidence. Though the bag had spent two years at the bottom of the lake, detectives were able to obtain a DNA profile of Brashear on the mouth of a water bottle. The bag also contained Bart Whitaker’s cell phone.
In March 2007, a jury convicted Bart Whitaker of the capital murder of his mother and his younger brother, and he was sentenced to death. The shooter, Brashear, received life in prison without parole. The getaway driver, Champagne, was sentenced to 15 years for his role in the plot.
Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman via APKent Whitaker embraces his wife Tanya after reacting to the an email from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles which voted unanimously to recommend clemency for death row inmate Thomas Whitaker, Feb. 20, 2018, in Austin, Texas.
Since then, Kent Whitaker has gotten remarried and has devoted his time to spreading his message of forgiveness as well as fighting to prevent his son’s execution. Kent wrote a book, “Murder by Family,” in which he tracks the pain, tears and faith that carried him through it all.
“I think that justice would be the opportunity to spend his life helping others and allowing me the opportunity to walk that road with him,” Kent Whitaker said.
A top Ford Motor Co. executive has been fired following misconduct allegations, the latest business leader to be shown the door amid broader scrutiny of workplace behavior in the U.S.
Raj Nair, a 53-year-old Ford veteran who most recently ran the auto company’s profitable North American business, is leaving after an investigation found his behavior was inconsistent with the company’s code of conduct.
The parents of first lady Melania Trump have become legal permanent residents of the United States and are close to obtaining their citizenship, according to people familiar with their status, but their attorney declined to say how or when the couple gained their green cards.
Immigration experts said Viktor and Amalija Knavs very likely relied on a family reunification process that President Donald Trump has derided as “chain migration” and proposed ending in such cases.
The Knavses, formerly of Slovenia, are living in the country on green cards, according to Michael Wildes, a New York-based immigration attorney who represents the first lady and her family.
“I can confirm that Mrs. Trump’s parents are both lawfully admitted to the United States as permanent residents,” he said. “The family, as they are not part of the administration, has asked that their privacy be respected so I will not comment further on this matter.”
The Knavses are now awaiting scheduling for their swearing-in ceremony, according to a person with knowledge of the parents’ immigration filings.
Questions over the Knavses’ immigration status have escalated since Trump campaigned for the White House on a hard-line anti-immigration agenda. Those questions grew sharper last month, when the president proposed ending the decades-long ability of U.S. citizens to sponsor their parents and siblings for legal residency in the United States.
Trump has repeatedly blasted the long-standing policy as “chain migration.” In last month’s State of the Union, the president called that process a threat to Americans’ security and quality of life. Under his plan, he said, only spouses and minor children could be sponsored for legal residency.
But immigration experts said such a path would have been the most likely method his in-laws would have used to obtain residency that permits them to live in the United States.
Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and backed by the White House that included Trump’s proposal.
Republican strategist Eric Beach explains why Pennsylvania’s redistricting is under fire.
The Republican presiding officers of Pennsylvania’s House and Senate asked the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday to block a new congressional district map that is widely expected to boost Democratic prospects in the November midterm elections.
The emergency request filed by Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai and Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnetti says the state Supreme Court usurped legislative authority when it issued the new map on Monday, calling it an unprecedented decision.
The congressional map drawn by the GOP-led legislature in 2011.
(Supreme Court of Pennsylvania)
“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court conspicuously seized the redistricting process and prevented any meaningful ability for the Legislature to enact a remedial map to ensure a court drawn map,” they wrote.
The revised congressional map for 2018.
(Supreme Court of Pennsylvania)
Last month, the Democratic-majority Supreme Court of Pennsylvania threw out a 2011 congressional district map that had been drafted by Republicans, saying it violated the state constitution’s guarantee of free and equal elections. On Monday, the court released new maps of Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional districts.
Republicans had won 13 of 18 seats in three straight elections under the now-invalidated map, even though Pennsylvania’s statewide elections are often closely divided and registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.
The challenge adds uncertainty as candidates are preparing to circulate nominating petitions to get their names on the May primary ballot.
A spokesman for Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, responding to the lawmakers’ filing, said Wolf was “focused on making sure the Department of State is fully complying with the court’s order by updating their systems and assisting candidates, county election officials and voters prepare for the primary election.”
Turzai told reporters earlier Wednesday that a separate action in federal court in Harrisburg is also possible.
Wednesday marked the third time in four months that Turzai and Scarnati have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put a halt to litigation over the 2011 map they took leading roles in producing.
In November, Justice Samuel Alito turned down a request for a stay of a federal lawsuit, a case that Turzai and Scarnati won in January.
On Feb. 5, Alito rejected a request from Turzai and Scarnati to halt a Jan. 22 order from the state Supreme Court that gave the Republican leaders two weeks to propose a map that would be supported by the Democratic governor and until last week to suggest a new map to the court.
The application filed Wednesday also was addressed to Alito.
Turzai and Scarnati argued that the state’s high court gave them scant time to propose their own map after throwing out the 2011 version, ensuring “that its desired plan to draft the new map would be successful.” As evidence of a “preordained plan,” they cited comments critical of gerrymandering made by Justice David Wecht during his 2015 campaign for the court.
“The court’s process was entirely closed,” they told Alito. “It did not allow the parties the opportunity to provide any comment to the proposed map, inquire on why certain subdivisions were split and whether it was to meet population equality, or further evaluate whether partisan intent played any role in the drafting.”
As a sign of the litigation’s potential impact on national politics, President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged Republicans to press their challenge of the map to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Your Original was correct! Don’t let the Dems take elections away from you so that they can raise taxes waste money!” Trump tweeted.
The five Democrats on the state Supreme Court sided with Democratic voters who challenged the map, although one of the Democratic justices, Max Baer, has pointedly opposed the compressed timetable.
Congressional candidates have from Feb. 27 to March 20 to collect and submit enough signatures to get on the ballot, and the new district maps have candidates and would-be candidates scrambling to decide whether to jump in. Five incumbents are not seeking another term and a sixth has resigned, an unusually large number of openings.
Rachel Crooks speaks at a news conference in December to discuss her accusations of unwanted kissing by Donald Trump. The president denied the allegations on Twitter after her story resurfaced on the front page of the Washington Post.
Mark Lennihan/AP
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Rachel Crooks speaks at a news conference in December to discuss her accusations of unwanted kissing by Donald Trump. The president denied the allegations on Twitter after her story resurfaced on the front page of the Washington Post.
Mark Lennihan/AP
The lengthy feature article on the front page of Monday’s Washington Post was a profile of Rachel Crooks, one of more than a dozen women who have accused President Trump of sexual misconduct. After going public with her story in the fall of 2016 on the eve of the election, she is now running for the state Legislature in Ohio as a Democrat.
Up until this point, Trump hadn’t directly addressed her claim that he kissed her against her will in 2006, with Trump and his spokespeople instead offering blanket denials.
That changed with two late morning tweets.
“A woman I don’t know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met, is on the FRONT PAGE of the Fake News Washington Post saying I kissed her (for two minutes yet) in the lobby of Trump Tower 12 years ago,” Trump wrote inaccurately describing Crook’s account of what happened. “Never happened!”
A woman I don’t know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met, is on the FRONT PAGE of the Fake News Washington Post saying I kissed her (for two minutes yet) in the lobby of Trump Tower 12 years ago. Never happened! Who would do this in a public space with live security……
Trump added a rhetorical question bridging the two tweets: “Who would do this in a public space with live security……….cameras running.”
Crooks then responded to Trump on Twitter, calling on him to release surveillance footage, if there is any, from where she says the unwanted kissing occurred, the 24th floor of Trump Tower, not the lobby as Trump had asserted in his tweet.
Trump’s tweets come at a time when his interactions with women over the years are in sharp focus. Last Friday the New Yorker published a piece detailing how the National Enquirer bought exclusive rights to and then never published the story of a former Playboy Playmate, Karen McDougal, who says she had a consensual sexual relationship with Trump in 2006.
This followed a New York Times story a week ago where Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen said that shortly before the election, he paid $130,000 to a porn actress named Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the professional name of Stormy Daniels. Cohen has released a statement for Clifford denying she had an affair with Trump in 2006. But in 2011 she detailed the alleged affair in an interview with In Touch magazine that wasn’t published at the time but was released earlier this year.
On Sunday, as Trump’s motorcade drove him to the Trump International Golf Club for dinner with his family, it passed the Ultra Gentleman’s Club near Palm Beach International Airport, which was advertising an event: “Stormy Daniels Making America Horny Again.”
A sign for a Gentlemen’s Club across the street from Trump International Golf Club that reads “Stormy Daniels Making America Horny Again” was seen from President Trump’s motorcade.
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A sign for a Gentlemen’s Club across the street from Trump International Golf Club that reads “Stormy Daniels Making America Horny Again” was seen from President Trump’s motorcade.
Andrew Harnik/AP
By Crooks’ telling in the Washington Post, Trump kissed her outside the office where she worked as a receptionist for the Bayrock Group:
“He was waiting for the elevator outside our office when I got up the nerve to introduce myself,” she is quoted in the Post as saying.
The article starts with Crooks telling her story to a group of a dozen women her aunt had gathered for a dinner party:
“She reached for her water glass and lifted it up into the air to use as a prop. ‘He took hold of my hand and held me in place like this,’ she said, squeezing the sides of the water glass, shaking it gently from side to side. ‘He started kissing me on one cheek, then the other cheek. He was talking to me in between kisses, asking where I was from, or if I wanted to be a model. He wouldn’t let go of my hand, and then he went right in and started kissing me on the lips.’
“She shook the water glass one final time and set it down. ‘It felt like a long kiss,’ she said. ‘The whole thing probably lasted two minutes, maybe less.’ ”
The timing of the alleged incident is notable, coming just months after the Access Hollywood tape was recorded. In that video, which didn’t come out until October 2016, Trump is heard grabbing a mint before disembarking from a bus to greet an actress.
“I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her,” Trump said in comments he later described as nothing more than “locker room talk.” He added, “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
After the Access Hollywood tape came out, the New York Times published a story that included charges from multiple women. Crooks was among them. At the time, Trump spokesman Jason Miller dismissed the entire article as “fiction.”
“It is absurd to think that one of the most recognizable business leaders on the planet with a strong record of empowering women in his companies would do the things alleged in this story, and for this to only become public decades later in the final month of a campaign for president should say it all,” Miller added.
Trump himself tweeted that “nothing ever happened with any of these women.”
Nothing ever happened with any of these women. Totally made up nonsense to steal the election. Nobody has more respect for women than me!
Late last year, Crooks was in the headlines when she was among a group of Trump accusers who again came forward in the midst of the #MeToo movement, which has seen many powerful men accused of wrongdoing face public shame and professional consequences. This drew attention back to accusations against Trump and why he never saw similar consequences.
Crooks and two other women were featured on NBC’s Today and held a news conference in New York in December. At the time, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about it in the daily White House press briefing.
“Look, the president has addressed these accusations directly and denied all of these allegations,” said Sanders. “And this took place long before he was elected to be president. And the people of this country, at a decisive election, supported President Trump, and we feel like these allegations have been answered through that process.”
And up until this point, that has been the White House response to such allegations — denial combined with the argument that Trump won despite widespread knowledge of allegations against him. Case closed.
As to the question Trump posed in his tweetstorm about Crooks, “Why doesn’t @washingtonpost report the story of the women taking money to make up stories about me? One had her home mortgage paid off. Only @FoxNews so reported,” Trump was apparently referencing a December 2017 story from The Hill discussed on air on Fox News.
The story detailed efforts by well-known lawyer Lisa Bloom to secure payments or other support for women who had come forward to talk about their experiences with Trump. Crooks wasn’t mentioned in that article.
The article did describe a Trump accuser, Jill Harth, who had the approximately $30,000 remaining on her mortgage paid off by an unnamed donor. However, the article points out that Harth had filed a sexual harassment suit against Trump in 1997 and her account of Trump groping her had resurfaced and been published in the summer of 2016, months before she ever connected with Bloom.
“Nothing that you’ve said to me about my mortgage or the Go Fund Me that was created to help me out financially affects the facts or the veracity of my 1997 federal complaint against Donald J. Trump for sexual harassment and assault,” she said in the article.
