Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

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“woke” is the new caravan.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

In my day, never was longer.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The willow is too close to the house.

Republicans in disarray!

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Hard Out There for a Pimp

Hard Out There for a Pimp

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jawdropping

So the much awaited evidence from Team Trump that Pence promised this morning would debunk the sexual assault claims has dropped in the form of an interview in the NY Post. And no. This is not made up or the Onion:

Donald Trump’s campaign says a British man is countering claims that the GOP presidential nominee groped a woman on a cross-country flight more than three decades ago.

The man says he was sitting across from the accuser and contacted the Trump campaign because he was incensed by her account — which is at odds with what he witnessed.

“I have only met this accuser once and frankly cannot imagine why she is seeking to make out that Trump made sexual advances on her. Not only did he not do so (and I was present at all times) but it was she that was the one being flirtatious,” Anthony Gilberthorpe said in a note provided to The Post by the Trump campaign.

In an exclusive interview arranged by the campaign, Gilberthorpe said he was on the flight — in either 1980 or 1981— where Jessica Leeds claimed Trump groped her.

***

Indeed, Gilberthorpe claimed, Leeds was “trying too hard” in her attempt to win Trump over.

“She wanted to marry him,” Gilberthorpe said of Leeds, who apparently made the confession when Trump excused himself and went to the bathroom.

There was no kissing, but the “shrill” Leeds was “very much in your face” with the real estate developer.

Not only did Trump not grope the woman, but she wanted HIM. But wait, it gets better, and by better I mean OMFG WAY WORSE I CAN NOT BELIEVE THIS SHIT BECAUSE YOU CAN NOT MAKE IT UP:

Gilberthorpe made headlines in 2014, when he went public with a claim that as a 17-year-old he procured boys (some who “could have been” underage”) for sex parties with high-ranking British politicians.

Gilberthorpe has no evidence to back up his claim — just his self-described excellent memory.

“What she said about Trump is wrong,” he told The Post. “I mean, no decent human being could sit by and have a woman go on television and tell the United States of America — accuse an individual of sexually molesting. It’s wrong for Trump, it’s wrong for me. But you know something else? It’s wrong for the American people,” he said.

You, sir, are no decent human being, so stop speaking for us.

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  4. 4.

    Corner Stone

    @Dexter: I just keep expecting the cast and crew of Monty Python to walk on stage at one of his rallys and take a long and sustained bow.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    My. This guy is SO FUCKING CREDIBLE that I’ve just lost all my shit and am willing to swear eternal fealty to the tiny-fingered, cheeto-faced, ferret-wearing shitgibbon.

    Also, next week, I will be crowned Tsar of all the Russias.

  15. 15.

    Mary G

    Can he say whether or not the plane’s armrests were fixed in place or not?

    What a load of hogwash.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @skerry: Surely he would have remembered her! He has, by his own account, the world’s best memory.

    Except, apparently, when he is under oath and vulnerable to perjury charges.

  18. 18.

    Gelfling 545

    Sounds like just the right type of person to come forward to “prove” Trump’s “innocence”, for a reasonable fee. Even if this were remotely accurate, was he present at all times with all 12 women? Perhaps, if the price is right, he was. Just wondering what about this the Trump campaign thinks will be persuasive.

  20. 20.

    jon

    The Trump campaign’s vetting process is really making me want him in charge of our military and secrets and economy. He finds the best people Every Possible Time, doesn’t he?

  26. 26.

    msdc

    @zzyzx: The same guy who recalls a flight from “either 1980 or 1981” with absolute clarity because he remembers how there was absolutely no sexual harrassment from the nobody real estate developer across the aisle.

    To be fair, encounters with Donald Trump that don’t involve sexual harrassment or assault seem to be getting increasingly rare.

  28. 28.

    Corner Stone

    Halperin is just dying to say something positive about Trump right now. It’s killing him.

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @jon: All those secrets in Hillary’s 300,000,000 emails that are now in the hands of our enemies, the Danes. I swoon to think…

  30. 30.

    Corner Stone

    “She would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.”

    That is so freaking good. So good.

  32. 32.

    trollhattan

    @Gemina13:
    Even a moron egotist like Trump knows he can’t sue over these revelations, because discovery. He is so cornered and keeps denying he’s even in the room.

  34. 34.

    sukabi

    “I remember it well, it was 1980 or 1981, the ship set sail for a 3 hour tour. Mary Anne was ALL OVER the Lovely Mr. Howell…”

    Can I have my money now?

  36. 36.

    mdblanche

    For those of us not aware of all internet traditions, what is the significance of “green balloons”?

  37. 37.

    West of the Cascades

    The Guardian’s liveblog of this was delightful in its understatement:

    Donald Trump’s campaign has put forward a British man to counter accusations of sexual assault made against the candidate by a 74-year-old woman, who alleged in an interview with the New York Times that Trump groped her on a flight more than three decades ago.

    Anthony Gilberthorpe, a former Conservative activist who last made headlines in 2014 when he alleged that he had once supplied politicians with underage boys for Tory sex parties, told the New York Post that Jessica Leeds’ account doesn’t square with his memory. [emphasis added]

    “I have only met this accuser once and frankly cannot imagine why she is seeking to make out that Trump made sexual advances on her,” Gilberthorpe said. “Not only did he not do so (and I was present at all times) but it was she that was the one being flirtatious.”

    Gilberthorpe told the New York Post that Leeds was “shrill” and “wanted to marry,” Trump, quoting an alleged conversation he had with Leeds when Trump was in the bathroom.

    Gilberthorpe would have been 17 at the time.

  38. 38.

    Keth P.

    “She’s not pretty enough for me to sexually assault” may actually be the better defense in this case. The surrogates are going to get laughed off TV (again) over this one. This is absolutely the worst crisis management I have ever seen, by a long shot.
    @mdblanche: IIRC it was a safe word for some politician who got arrested for beating up raping a prostitutewoman he knew and likely drugged. He said she never said “Green balloons” so he kept beating her.

  39. 39.

    PhoenixRising

    ‘Even in the early 1980s, an encounter with Donald J Trump in which he did not grab the crotch of the woman next to him was highly memorable’ is another way to say it.

  40. 40.

    C. Isaac

    This account is less believable than the Trump / Pence slash fic I saw the other day.

    It all started with that kissyface picture of Trump and Pence with the subtext of ‘I just start kissing them…’ and it spun off into crazy land from there.

  42. 42.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Keth P.: When you don’t have the first clue that you’re in a crisis situation in the first place, this is understandable.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    In her first official act as president, President Clinton issues an executive order declaring the 2016 election a wicked bad dream.

  47. 47.

    TaMara (HFG)

    I keep thinking this can’t get any weirder…and then it does. I wish I could enjoy this, but I’m beginning to worry about how his meltdown is going to influence his crazed followers (and that’s what they are, not supporters, but Jim Jones style nuts).

  48. 48.

    PPCLI

    @mdblanche: It’s apparently a safeword for BDSM play, to call a halt to everything. (When you are role-playing, you may be using normal distress words like “stop” as part of the play, so you go for an expression that you would not normally use under such circumstances.)

  50. 50.

    debbie

    @Keth P.:

    I’d like one of them to be asked if they believe Trump when he says he sees a 35-year-old man when he looks in the mirror.

  51. 51.

    Joyce H

    What’s most incredible about this is the fellow’s claim that when he saw this 74 year old woman on television, he recognized her as a woman he saw ONCE, forty years ago. Uh-huh. Right.

    But this quote from Trump today, talking about why aren’t women accusing Obama – “He better be careful because they could say it about anybody.”

    Does anyone else think that sounds like instructions to his supporters to get out there with an accusation against Obama, try to level the playing field? (And yeah, I know, Obama isn’t on the ballot, but he doesn’t seem to make that distinction.)

  53. 53.

    TS

    @skerry:

    This story does put Trump on the same plane as Leeds, a woman he “never met”.

    Wonder if that liberal media will pick up on this – The republican excuse for a candidate never thinks of the consequences when he finds someone to speak for him – he just puts them right into the sunlight to prove he’s lied from the beginning.

  54. 54.

    PPCLI

    Surely whether or not he was on that flight is something that can be documented. It would be an incredible coincidence if so.
    It wouldn’t add any more weight to his testimony if true, but it would be immediately disqualifying if false, and simple enough to establish.

  55. 55.

    Peale

    They would have been better off coming up with a woman to lie, whose claim could be easily refuted, and then use the process of discrediting her to cast doubt on everyone else. What kind of ratfuck operation is Roger running here? Sad.

  56. 56.

    Brachiator

    Gilberthorpe made headlines in 2014, when he went public with a claim that as a 17-year-old he procured boys (some who “could have been” underage”) for sex parties with high-ranking British politicians.

    Gilberthorpe has no evidence to back up his claim — just his self-described excellent memory.

    I said in another thread that this shit had become a painful farce.

    Need. New. Synonyms.

    This trial is a travesty. It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.

    — Woody Allen’s “Bananas”

  60. 60.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    Then there’s this:

    Right-Wing ‘Crusaders’ Militia Group Plotted Terror Attack On Muslim Immigrants, FBI Charges
    The terrorist group reportedly had “sovereign citizen, anti-government, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant extremist beliefs.”

    Link

  62. 62.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    The word cloud for this is a thing of beauty, and I haven’t even seen one yet.

    Much to the Trump for President crew’s chagrin, the words PROCURED and UNDERAGE and you know SEX may appear just a little more prominently alongside the word TRUMP than they had hoped.

  63. 63.

    PPCLI

    @PPCLI: Though perhaps the woman herself wisely didn’t say openly what the specific flight date was, to make it harder for people to make crap up and claim they were there.

  64. 64.

    PhoenixRising

    @PPCLI: Could we just not? Pretend that this is something that requires to be taken seriously? A 17 year old sitting in first class who gets the gossip download from a 35 year old woman he’s never met…

    Hillary should prep for debate 3 with just chilled vodka and ‘The Princess Bride’.

    “We are men of action. Lies do not become us.”
    “You keep using that word. But I do not think it means…”

  67. 67.

    Peale

    @PPCLI: LOL. Suddenly Donald and this guy produce their boarding passes form 1980. They save everything, you know, everything. Plus I’m sure the passenger records from the cusp of the computer age were seamlessly transferred from Pan Ams punch card system to Delta Air Lines through six mergers. Plus someone kept the security video. There’s got to be security video from 1980.

  68. 68.

    debbie

    Day One of a Trump presidency:

    The suspects allegedly planned to attack the housing complex, where approximately 120 people live and where one of the apartments was used as a mosque, the officials said. They were part of a militia group that called itself The Crusaders, according to law enforcement.

  72. 72.

    sukabi

    @TS: I think it speaks more that the kind of people that will still associate with him, even for imagined money, aren’t even CLOSE to being decent, competent people. They are deplorable.

  77. 77.

    gorram

    “Gilberthorpe has no evidence to back up his claim — just his self-described excellent memory.”

    I mean what else could you do? Ask The Gays?

  79. 79.

    Origuy

    @mdblanche: From the Balloon Juice Lexicon:

    Green Balloon Juice – Republican State Senator Rod Jetton reacted to charges that he beat and choked his partner into unconsciousness by complaining that she didn’t use their ‘safe word’, green balloons. It didn’t take long for Balloon Juice commentor Kryptik to plead “Green Balloon Juice” when the concurrent HCR (health care reform) discussion threads descended to levels, and lengths, that could be construed as unnecessarily abusive to the innocent by-reader.

    The BJ Lexicon. Learn it. Live it. Love it. (Can someone please update it?)

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @mdblanche:
    @PPCLI:

    From the Balloon Juice Lexicon:

    Green Balloon Juice – Republican State Senator Rod Jetton reacted to charges that he beat and choked his partner into unconsciousness by complaining that she didn’t use their ‘safe word’, green balloons. It didn’t take long for Balloon Juice commentor Kryptik to plead “Green Balloon Juice” when the concurrent HCR (health care reform) discussion threads descended to levels, and lengths, that could be construed as unnecessarily abusive to the innocent by-reader.

    Since that time, a number of BJ meet ups have featured green balloons in order that internet friends/meatspace strangers will know one another.

    EDIT: Darn you, Origuy! Darn you straight to heck and back!

  81. 81.

    Bobbo

    This is something out of Monty Python. The most over the top Trumpanistas won’t believe it but of course they will tell anyone who asks that they do

  82. 82.

    Mart

    Sounds like Ferguson’s Mike Brown’s Witness 40, a woman who not only saw everything about the Brown shooting different from everyone else. She testified that she just happened to be in Ferguson that day to check out if her daddy’s negative stories about the coloreds were true. Same woman who said she witnessed another huge St. Louis story about a boy being kidnapped and killed. In the kidnapping case her testimony was tossed as crazy. In Brown’s case she was used as a lead witness to the DA. The DA when questioned about her reliability after the fact, stood by her testimony to the grand jury. The douche.

  83. 83.

    Gin & Tonic

    I flew quite a lot for business in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Through all sorts of chicanery I ended up in first class from time to time. I have to say that I can’t recall a damn thing about any of those flights. The idea that some random dude would recall *every detail* about the interactions between two strangers 35 years later just doesn’t pass the laugh test.

  84. 84.

    hueyplong

    I was also on that flight (and was present at all times). Not only were the armrests fixed, but they were 3 feet high. Gilberthorpe spent the entire flight telling Donald Trump about the physical attributes of 17 year old boys he “knew,” so Trump could not possibly have been groping that woman he didn’t find all that attractive, despite her incessant pleas that he please, please pay more attention to her. I was 12 at the time but very precocious, and remember it like it was yesterday. Trump was a gentleman thoughout and everyone sensed his strength. Thank you for allowing me to set the record straight.

  85. 85.

    Mark B

    I thought Leeds’ story was the weakest of all of the accounts, since there were no other known witnesses. And now one of Trump’s advisers shows and remembers her and verifies many details of her story, including the part where a creepy guy across the aisle saw the whole thing and did nothing to help. They just don’t know when to stop talking, do they?

    Hey, I can post again! Woo HOO!

  86. 86.

    Just One More Canuck

    “Dear Mr. President, there are too many states nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am not a crackpot!”

    – Anthony Gilberthorpe

  88. 88.

    piratedan

    and we all know that 17 year olds fly in first class all the time, its practically mandated airline policy.

  90. 90.

    Mark B

    @Villago Delenda Est: The odd thing about Leeds’ account was the part where she got picked to sit next to Trump for reasons unknown to her. Is there any doubt now that Gilberthorpe was the one that ‘procured’ her?

  93. 93.

    Xof

    Is there anything directly from the Trump campaign on this? I’d love to link to something besides the NY Post piece…

  95. 95.

    different-church-lady

    I can’t remember which valued commenter said it a few days ago, but I now agree it’s increasingly likely Trump ends his concession speech with, “The Aristocrats!”

  97. 97.

    Craig

    Uh, Donald? You said the other day you never met this woman. Now with this “evidence” you have admitted you not only have met this woman but were indeed sitting next to her on the plane.

    Fire your lawyers now.

  102. 102.

    MCA1

    Gilberthorpe just happens to be the same guy who would go on 17 years later to hire a young woman to seduce the primary UKIP rival of one Nigel Farage and tape their pillow talk in his apartment before leaking it to the press. Just a total coincidence, though, I’m sure.

  104. 104.

    Avi

    Someone on Twitter pointed out that Gilberthorpe is an anagram of “blithe groper.” You can’t make this stuff up.

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