Donald Trump's lawyer says 'you can't rape your spouse' in response to ex-wife's allegations
Donald Trump's presidential-campaign team has fired back after The Daily Beast published an explosive story highlighting decades-old comments Trump's first wife made in which she used the word "rape" to describe one of their sexual encounters.
When the allegations first surfaced in 1993, Ivana Trump issued a statement clarifying that she didn't mean the term in a "a literal or criminal sense."
A representative for Trump, who is now a front-runner in many polls of the Republican primary, provided a statement that said the incident was "old news and it never happened." The person also said Ivana Trump made up the "rape" allegation as part of an effort to "exploit" Trump during their divorce proceedings in the early '90s.
"This is an event that has been widely reported on in the past — it is old news and it never happened," the Trump representative said. "It is a standard lawyer technique, which was used to exploit more money from Mr. Trump especially since he had an ironclad prenuptial agreement."
Ivana Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The "rape" story first surfaced in the 1993 book "Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump," which was written by former Newsweek and Texas Monthly reporter Harry Hurt III. In that book, Hurt wrote that Ivana described a "violent assault" in a deposition that was part of the divorce proceedings and further added that she told "some of her closest confidantes" she was "raped" by Trump.
When Hurt's book was published, Trump and his lawyers provided a statement from Ivana that was included on the first page of the biography. Trump and Ivana had reached a $14 million cash divorce settlement two years earlier in 1991.
"During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me," Ivana Trump's statement said. "[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a 'rape,' but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense."
In a 1993 interview with Newsday, Trump said the story that appeared in Hurt's book was "obviously false."
Along with saying the "rape" incident "never happened" and was merely an attempt by Ivana to "exploit" Trump in their divorce, the Trump campaign representative also slammed The Daily Beast in the statement.
"It is just a way for the badly failing and money-losing Daily Beast, which has been reporting inaccurately on Mr. Trump for years, to get some publicity for itself," the Trump representative said.
The Daily Beast's initial story on the rape allegation included Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, claiming that legally "you cannot rape your spouse." According to The Daily Beast, Cohen also threatened the site's reporters with legal action if they published a story on the accusations.
"I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we're in the courthouse," Cohen said, according to The Daily Beast.
"And I will take you for every penny you still don't have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know. So I'm warning you, tread very f***ing lightly, because what I'm going to do to you is going to be f***ing disgusting. You understand me?"
The Daily Beast's executive editor, Noah Shachtman has provided a series of questions he had for the Trump campaign including whether it had any examples of his site reporting incorrectly on Trump.
"Did they actually provide any examples of those inaccuracies, or are their media critiques as busted as their legal interpretations?" Shachtman told US Yahoo.
Shachtman also questioned Cohen's behavior and whether Trump shared his attorney's views on rape.
"I'd like to know if Mr. Trump also feels that marital rape is not a crime ... We stand by our reporting," Shachtman said, adding: "If this was such old, nothing news, why is the Trump campaign moving so aggressively to squash it? Why did they threaten our reporter? And also, if Mr. Trump actually makes his way to the White House, the kind of intimidation tactics that Mr. Cohen displayed tonight, would he consider those to be the norm for his administration? I'd love to know answers to those things."
