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A staff member in Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign said he kissed her without consent at a rally of supporters before a rally in Florida. An interaction that she alleges in the framework of a new action in process always provokes her in the anxiety.
In interviews with the Washington Post and in the lawsuit, Alva Johnson stated that Trump had taken his hand and leaned to kiss him on the lips as he was coming out of his room. a motorhome in front of the rally in Tampa on August 24, 2016. Johnson said to have returned. The head and the unwanted kiss landed on the side of her mouth, which she described as "super-scary and inappropriate".
"I immediately felt raped because I did not expect or want to," she said. "I can still see his lips coming straight to my face."
Johnson said she had talked about this incident to her boyfriend, her mother, and her stepfather later that day, a report confirmed by the three reporters at The Post. Two months later, Johnson consulted a lawyer from Florida about the unwanted kiss. he sent SMS to The Post showing that he considered it "credible" but was not defending himself for commercial reasons. The lawyer gave Johnson the name of a therapist, whose notes, which The Post reviewed, refer to an unspecified event during the campaign that left her helpless.
In a statement, Sarah Sanders, press secretary at the White House, called the allegation "absurd".
"This has never happened and is directly contradicted by several highly credible eyewitness accounts," she wrote.
Two Trump supporters whom Johnson identified as witnesses – a campaign manager and Pam Bondi, then attorney general of Florida – denied seeing the so-called kiss during interviews with The Post.
While more than a dozen other women have publicly accused Trump of having touched them inappropriately, Johnson is the only accuser to come forward since taking office and the only one to allege unwanted contacts during countryside. Trump is facing a libel suit in New York brought by Summer Zervos, a former reality TV contender "Apprentice," who claims to have forcibly kissed and fumbled in 2007.
Johnson, an event organizer who resides in Madison County, Alaska, claims unspecified injuries for emotional pain and suffering. The federal lawsuit, filed Monday in Florida, also alleges that the campaign was discriminatory against Johnson, who is black, paying less than his male white counterparts. Campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany dismissed the statement as "disappointing and unfounded".
The post contacted Johnson for the first time almost a year ago, while she was reporting allegations of misconduct against Trump, but she declined to comment. In recent days, Johnson's lawyer gave The Post a draft of his complaint, and Johnson and other people involved with the lawsuit agreed to be questioned.
Trump agrees to postpone his schedule for libel against Zervos in the summer.
Johnson said that she had begun to consider getting known in October 2016, after the video showing that Trump was boasting of kissing and groping women without their consent. This is the moment, she says, when she came to consider the kiss as part of Trump's usual behavior doing everything he wanted for women.
She said that she was nervous about the idea of expressing herself, but that she was coming to regret having worked in the campaign. "I tried to give up," she said, crying. "You want to move on in your life. I do not sleep I get up at 4 am watching the news. I feel guilty. The only thing I did was go to work one day.
She said she spoke to a few other lawyers while she was considering her options before, in June of last year, to finally hire Hassan Zavareei, Washington 's trial attorney. Three months later, she decided to seal a multi-year trial in which two members of her family had briefly asked for a temporary prohibition order against her. The family members joined his request for the records to be sealed, according to the documents.
Johnson, 43, a mother of four, does not have a long history of political activism. She registered as a Democrat in California several years ago. She said that she had voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, but thought that Trump might be able to use his business experience to help black communities in trouble.
Johnson is interested in the Trump campaign through his stepfather, Jacob Savage, a retired microbiology professor who said he's been active in Republican politics for decades. She met Trump at a rally in November 2015 in Birmingham, Alaska, where Johnson said the candidate was looking at her from the top down. "Oh, beautiful, beautiful, fantastic," he said, according to the lawsuit.
She said she looked beyond the commentary and that two months later she was working as campaign director and campaign coalitions in Alabama. Johnson said that she thought she could use her knowledge of human resources and event planning to use them in a political campaign.
In the three months leading up to the general election, Johnson was posted to Florida. His primary responsibility was to manage recreational vehicles that ran through the state as mobile campaign offices. It was inside one, a rainy afternoon in Tampa, where Johnson said the candidate had pressed his lips to his own.
Dressed in a dark suit and a red tie, carrying an umbrella, Trump headed for the camper while Johnson stood back and took a video. "Good job, boss," she said greeting her supporters, according to pictures she provided to The Post.
Johnson brought volunteers to the camper to take pictures with Trump. She noticed that Trump was trying to make eye contact with her, she said during the interviews and trial. At the time of the rally, Johnson said Trump was overtaking her as he was coming out of the motorhome.
"I have been on the road for you since March, far from my family," she said, according to the lawsuit. "You do a great job. Go there and kick.
Trump took her hand, thanked her for her work, and leaned over, she said.
"Oh, my God, I think he's going to kiss me," she said in an interview, describing the moment. "It comes right on my lips. So I turn my head and he kisses me just in the corner of my mouth, still holding my hand all the time. Then he goes away.
She said she was standing there, feeling humiliated, and Bondi smiled at him as she exited the RV. Karen Giorno, director of the Florida campaign, grabbed Johnson's elbow and handed it over, Johnson said in an interview.
Bondi and Giorno stated that they did not remember seeing Trump kissing Johnson. They denied reacting in the manner described by Johnson.
"Do I remember seeing something inappropriate? One hundred percent no, "Bondi said in an interview. "I am a prosecutor, and if I saw something inappropriate, I would have said something."
Giorno called the allegation "ridiculous", saying that "it did not happen at all".
Sanders urged The Post to speak to Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for First Lady Melania Trump. Grisham, Trump's press director in 2016, said she had not seen the so-called kiss and was in front of Trump as he was getting out of the car.
Later in the day, Johnson called Miguel Rego, his many-year-old boyfriend. He too was working on the Florida countryside. "I thought it was crazy that he kissed her. I did not know how to treat it, "said Rego, recalling the conversation.
Then Johnson called Savage, his father-in-law. "I felt it was a betrayal of trust," Savage said. "I felt responsible because, if I had not introduced her to the countryside, she would not have been in this situation."
Johnson also discussed the incident with his mother, Anne Savage. "She was hysterical," Savage said.
Johnson, however, continued to work for Trump, even after the opportunity to work at the campaign headquarters in New York was offered and canceled abruptly in mid-September, according to her and campaign leaders. The position has never been filled.
About six weeks after the so-called kiss, on October 7, 2016, The Post released Trump's videotape extolling his sexual assault on a "Access Hollywood" host. "You know I'm automatically attracted to the beautiful ones – I start kissing them," Trump said in 2005. "It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I do not even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. "
Johnson said that she was stunned.
"I had a stomach ache," she said. "That's what he did."
Johnson said that she had stopped going to the office and that she had resigned about three weeks before the election. "She has nightmares because of what happened," therapist Lisheyna Hurvitz wrote on October 27, according to notes that Johnson had obtained and provided to The Post.
Johnson also spoke to lawyer Adam Horowitz, who represents victims of sexual abuse, including children. "I believe you and I want to see you get justice and denounce this behavior," wrote Horowitz to Johnson in a text dated October 28, 2016. "At the moment, my practice simply can not plunge into anything. something like that that would take so much time with an uncertain outcome. "
She added that she had once again attempted to put the event behind her and that she had even attended one of the inaugural ball. She has also applied twice for jobs in the administration. She said she feels she has taken advantage of these opportunities through her work during the campaign. Johnson said that, even though she was disappointed, missing out on these jobs did not affect her decision to sue.
Johnson said she had become restless while the #MeToo movement was encouraging women to express themselves about sexual misconduct. She added that she was also motivated to act when she had noticed the impact of the president's policies, including the detention of immigrant children. "Babies in cages – I did not think it would be so bad," she said.
In September, at the request of Johnson and his family, a Georgian judge sealed the court records stemming from the family conflict that had raged for years. According to the records, Johnson's half-sister and his father, on behalf of a younger half-sister, briefly obtained a temporary prohibition order against Johnson in 2006. They allege that she had telephoned the school of the youngest brother and falsely claimed that the teen was drugged. . The older sister wrote that she had dismissed Johnson from his business for using a "property of the company" to organize extramarital affairs online.
The family members withdrew the petitions less than three weeks later, before the case could be heard by a judge and before Johnson had the opportunity to answer in court. An employee inadvertently provided the sealed records to The Post.
"These false allegations came in the context of a family conflict that was resolved amicably years ago," Zavareei said. "Ms. Johnson's family strongly supports the pursuit of justice against Donald Trump for the sexual assault that he has committed against Ms. Johnson and many other women over the course of several decades."
His father and two half-siblings could not be reached or declined to comment.
Read more:
Trump says the accusers of sexual assault have lied and threaten to sue them.
Stormy Daniels loses the legal battle against Trump while Summer Zervos proceeds quietly.
Trump's accuser, Rachel Crooks, wonders if anyone listens to her story.
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