Trump Team Says Video Clears Him of Nonconsensual Kiss Claim; Other Side Says Not So Fast

A video of an encounter between Donald Trump and a then-campaign aide clears him of her claims that he kissed her without consent, lawyers for Trump say, while the womanโ€™s attorney says otherwise. Suggested Reading Three Friends Were Headed To A Beyoncรฉ Concert, But One Dies On the Way. Guess What The Other Two Did…

A video of an encounter between Donald Trump and a then-campaign aide clears him of her claims that he kissed her without consent, lawyers for Trump say, while the womanโ€™s attorney says otherwise.

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Trump lawyer Charles Harder released a 15-second video to the media this week, saying it clearly shows Alva Johnson, then a Trump campaign worker, engaged in an โ€œinnocent interactionโ€ with Trump at a 2016 campaign event.

Johnson filed suit against Trump earlier this year, accusing him of โ€œbatteryโ€ by kissing her without permission at the event, and charging he paid her and other black staffers less than their white and male co-workers.

But as the Washington Post reports:

In a Wednesday court filing, Harder brushed off Johnsonโ€™s battery claim as โ€œunmeritorious and frivolous.โ€ The video, he argued, shows an โ€œinnocent interaction that is mutual โ€” and not forcible.โ€

Johnson attorney Hassan Zavareei says not so fast, telling the Post:

[...] the video โ€œcorroborates exactly what Alva said.โ€

โ€œNow, whether or not everybody would have felt violated by that is an open question. But Alva was. And she testified exactly why she felt uncomfortable. She testified that she didnโ€™t really know how to react when it happened and that she was confused and uncomfortable,โ€ he wrote Thursday.

Johnson has said in interviews with the press that as Trump went to kiss her, she turned her head and his lips landed on the side of her mouth, humiliating her. As the Post reports, Johnson said when Trumpโ€™s infamous Access Hollywood recording came out with him bragging about groping and kissing women, she realized that is what he had done to her.

โ€œI felt sick to my stomach,โ€ Johnson told the Post. โ€œThat was what he did to me.โ€

As the Post notes, Trump and his team have long denied Johnsonโ€™s claims:

In February, then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders dismissed Johnsonโ€™s allegation as โ€œabsurd on its face,โ€ adding: โ€œThis never happened and is directly contradicted by multiple highly credible eye witness accounts.โ€

Zavareei told the Post the video evidence proves Johnson has been telling the truth about being kissed by Trump.

โ€œAfter Access Hollywood came out, Ms. Johnson was able to put in context exactly what Trump had done to her and what it meant,โ€ Zavareei said. โ€œIndeed he told her himself, in his own words, exactly what that kiss was.โ€

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