Former contestant on The Apprentice accuses Trump of sexual assault

Two more women came forward on Friday with allegations that Donald Trump had groped them, including a contestant on his reality show, The Apprentice, as the Republican presidential candidate said accusations of sexual misconduct against him were part of a plot to discredit him a month ahead of the election.

Summer Zervos, who competed on the television show's fifth season in 2006, gave a news conference with celebrity attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles, saying Trump tried to get her to lie down on a bed with him when she met him in 2007.

"He then asked me to sit next to him. I complied. He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again very aggressively and placed his hand on my breast," said Zervos.

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Zervos added, "He put me in an embrace and I tried to push him away. I pushed his chest to put space between us and I said, 'Come on man, get real.' He repeated my words back to me, 'Get real,' as he began thrusting his genitals."

Zervos said she thought Trump was going to take her to dinner to discuss a job, but the meeting took place in his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

"I wondered if the sexual behaviour was some kind of test and whether or not I had passed" by rejecting it, she said, but Trump later offered her a job at a golf course for half the salary she had requested.

Trump released a statement denying her allegations.

"I vaguely remember Ms. Zervos as one of the many contestants on The Apprentice over the years. To be clear, I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago," Trump said. "That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I've conducted my life."

Late Friday, the Trump campaign released a statement in which a cousin of Servos said he was "shocked and bewildered" by her account.

John Barry of Mission Viejo, Calif., said in the statement that Zervos "wishes she could still be on reality TV, and in an effort to get that back she's saying all of these negative things about Mr. Trump."

Alleged nightclub groping

Separately, the Washington Post published an interview with a woman who said she was sitting on a couch with friends at a New York nightclub in the early 1990s when she felt a hand reach up her skirt and touch her through her underwear.

Kristin Anderson, then in her early 20s, said she pushed the hand away, turned around and recognized Trump as the man who had groped her. Then recently divorced, Trump's face was then seen frequently in the New York tabloids, and he was regular presence on the Manhattan club scene.

"He was so distinctive looking — with the hair and the eyebrows. I mean, nobody else has those eyebrows," Anderson told the newspaper. She said the assault was random and occurred with "zero conversation."

Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said, "Mr. Trump strongly denies this phoney allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity. It is totally ridiculous."

At the time, Anderson was trying to start a career as a model while working as a makeup artist and restaurant hostess. She said the episode lasted no more than 30 seconds.

Anderson told the Post that she and her companions were "very grossed out and weirded out" and thought, "OK, Donald is gross. We all know he's gross. Let's just move on."

The Post says it contacted Anderson, now 46, after a friend she had told about the incident recounted it to a reporter. Other friends also told the Post that Anderson recounted the same story to them years ago.

'No idea who these women are'

Trump spoke out about the many accusations of sexual assault that have emerged within the past few days at a rally Friday in Greensboro, N.C.

In denying the accusations again, he criticized the appearance of one of his accusers. Trump said if "you looked at the horrible woman" who made the latest accusation, "you'd say 'I don't think so."'

It was not immediately clear which of the women Trump was referring to. 

The Republican presidential nominee also said "phoney accusers" were making accusations against him "for a little fame" or to damage his campaign. "It's not hard to find a small handful of people willing to make false smears," he said.

Trump added he "has no idea who these women are" and said his supporters would believe him "because you people know me for a lot of years."

Trump said the women may be motivated for financial reasons or political reasons or "the simple reason they want to stop our movement."

Reaction from Clinton

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has tried to strike a chord of unity at the end of a negative campaign against Trump.

She said at a surprise stop in Seattle that the election has been "incredibly painful" but the country is going to "have to keep working together" after election day.

Saying there's a lot about the election that is "dispiriting" and "unsettling," Clinton added she takes "absolutely no satisfaction" in what is happening with rival Trump because "it hurts me and it hurts our country." She said it "sends a terrible message to so many people here at home and around the world."

On the heels of more women coming forward with allegations of unwanted sexual advances by Trump, President Barack Obama has tweeted a link to It's on Us, a website aimed at stopping sexual assault.

Obama doesn't mention Trump in the tweet. But he says: "Clearly, we still have more to do to prevent sexual assault and the thinking that leads to it. That starts with us."

Earlier on Friday, Trump warned Obama that women could wrongly accuse him of sexual assault, as he claims has happened to him.

Trump said at a rally in Greensboro, N.C., that those women "could say it about anybody" and added Obama "better be careful" because women could say the same thing about him.

Man disputes accuser's claims

Late on Friday, the Trump campaign put forward a British man who disputed the account of one of the accusers, Jessica Leeds.

Leeds, who is now 74, said Trump groped her on a flight to New York, in or around 1980. Her account was published in the New York Times earlier this week and she has since been interviewed on CNN.

The New York Post reported that the man, Anthony Gilberthorpe, contacted the Trump campaign after Leeds went public with her story, and said he was sitting near Leeds and Trump in first class on the same flight.

"I was there, I was in a position to know that what she said was wrong, wrong, wrong," said Gilberthorpe, who is now 54 and would have been a teenager at the time.

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Trump had been promising that he would soon provide information showing the allegations against him were false.

Gilberthorpe is known in Britain for his claims that he provided underage boys to British politicians for sex parties in the 1980s.

Trump, 70, mocked Leeds on Friday. "Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you," he said.

He called Natasha Stoynoff, a reporter who wrote in People magazine that Trump kissed her and pinned her against a wall, a "liar" and told the rally to "check out her Facebook page, you'll understand."                                                                                                                            

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