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Trump to ramp up media attacks by going after New York Times, Carlos Slim

Donald Trump is expected to ramp up his attacks on the media Friday by claiming that Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire and a New York Times shareholder, is part of a global media conspiracy that is dredging up claims that he has sexually harassed and assaulted women.

According to a Trump adviser who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, Trump “is planning to claim that Mr. Slim, as a shareholder of New York Times Co. and donor to the Clinton Foundation, has an interest in helping Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

A spokesman for Slim told the Journal that the expected attack is “totally false.”

“Of course we aren’t interfering with the U.S. election,” the spokesman said. “We aren’t even active in Mexican politics.”

Slim’s family owns a minority stake in the Times, which is controlled by the Sulzberger family. Arthur Sulzberger, who serves as publisher of the Times, told the Journal that Slim “fully respects boundaries regarding the independence of our journalism” and “has never sought to influence what we report.”

Slim, who has a net worth of around $47 billion, has donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation since it was founded in 1997.

Trump’s expected attack on Slim is not entirely new to his presidential campaign. In a radio interview earlier this year with Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News who is now CEO of the Trump campaign, Trump asserted that Slim was using the Times “to influence American policy” and suspected that Slim objected to how Trump has described Mexicans.

Trump has repeatedly denounced the mounting claims of sexual harassment and assault, saying that all of the accounts are false, politically motivated and coordinated by the Clinton campaign and the media.

A lawyer for Trump has threatened to file suit against the Times, which published two women’s accounts of sexual assault. No lawsuit has been filed.