Donald Trump threatens to sue New York Times over sexual harassment report
by Dylan Byers and Brian Stelter
CNN Money
October 13, 2016: 1:23 AM ET
Lawyers for Donald Trump have called on The New York Times to retract a bombshell report in which two women claimed that Trump had touched them inappropriately.
The Times story featured two women, Jessica Leeds and Rachel Crooks, who said that Trump made inappropriate physical advances on them despite the fact that they had never met before. CNN has not been able to independently confirm their accounts.
"Your article is reckless, defamatory and constitutes libel per se," Marc E. Kasowitz, a lawyer representing Trump, wrote in an open letter to Times executive editor Dean Baquet. "We hereby demand that you immediately cease any further publication of this article, remove it from your website and issue a full and immediate retraction and apology. Failure to do so will leave my client with no option but to purse all available actions and remedies."
The letter lacks any substantive facts to cast doubt on the Times story, and is not a lawsuit.
High-ranking sources within the Trump campaign had told CNNMoney that they were "drafting" lawsuits against both the Times and The Palm Beach Post, which published a separate story in which another women claimed Trump had groped her.
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