The Daily Beast goes after GOP candidate, gets threats

Jul 28, 2015 13:01 GMT  ·  By
Ivana Trump's rape accusation against Donald Trump comes back to haunt him during his Presidential campaign
   Ivana Trump's rape accusation against Donald Trump comes back to haunt him during his Presidential campaign

Presidential candidate Donald Trump is again making headlines, and the word “rape” is again attached to his name. This time, though, he’s not the one pointing fingers, mostly at Mexicans for coming over to the US to rape women, but the one being indirectly accused of raping his ex-wife Ivana Trump, in a violent bedroom fight.

In response to Trump’s comments on Mexican immigrants and his later explanation that “Someone’s doing the raping” (video below), the Daily Beast has uncovered documents from Trump’s 1990 divorce from Ivana and an excerpt from the 1993 book “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump,” by Harry Hurt III.

Ivana accused Donald of raping her one night in the final years of their marriage, as revenge for the pain he was feeling from a scalp reduction surgical intervention, which he had undergone with her plastic surgeon. He blamed her for the pain he was in.

Graphic excerpt puts Trump in a very bad light

The book excerpt, available at the link in the second paragraph, has Ivana recall the night when Donald took all his frustrations out on her. He started by yelling at her and blaming her for the pain he was in, because she had recommended the doctor who’d performed the scalp surgery. He had a bald spot that he wanted covered up.

Admittedly, Trump became physical with Ivana, pinning her arms behind her back and pulling her hair out, as if to show her the kind of pain he was in because of the surgery. He then turned her around, pinned her better and “raped” her. Ivana would later use the exact same word in conversations with friends.

The episode recounted in the book is based on a 1990 court deposition by Ivana. She would later go back on it, changing “rape” with “violated,” and trying to downplay the incident, saying that the love and attention that Donald used to shower her with during their lovemaking were now absent, which made her feel “violated.”

With all this, the Daily Beast writes, the 1991 divorce was granted on the grounds of Trump’s “cruel and inhuman treatment” of Ivana. This also included years of verbal and physical abuse, and daily acts of humiliation that made her more obedient to him.

Trump’s lawyer goes on the attack

Before running the story, The Daily Beast reached out for comment to both Donald and Ivana. She would not call back because, by the agreement she signed on the day the divorce became final, she is still not allowed to talk to the press about him without his consent.

Trump had his attorney, Michael Cohen, respond: apparently, there’s no need to dispute Ivana’s rape claim because you can’t rape your wife or husband. Rape between spouses doesn’t exist, he explains.

“You’re talking about the front-runner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as private individual who never raped anybody. And, of course, understand that by the very definition, you can’t rape your spouse,” Cohen says. “It is true. You cannot rape your spouse. And there’s very clear case law.”

That statement is incorrect, the publication notes: you can rape a spouse, and the marital rape exemption to the law stood in New York until 1984, when it was struck down. The law recognizes rape of a spouse as rape.

Before proceeding to actual threats against both the editor of the piece and the entire Daily Beast, Cohen also says that what Ivana meant by the word “rape” was that she hadn’t been “satisfied” by the encounter. Ivana, of course, can’t say anything in her defense, even assuming she’d want to.