Harth, who settled a 1997 harassment lawsuit against Trump, says she will retaliate if the Republican nominee carries out promise to sue his accusers

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Jill Harth, the first woman to publicly accuse Donald Trump of sexual misconduct, has threatened to countersue the Republican nominee for president, if he carries out the promise to sue his accusers he outlined in Gettysburg on Saturday.

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“If he sues me, I know that truth is an absolute defense, and I will countersue for the emotional hurt and lost income his attacks have caused me,” Harth said in a statement on Monday afternoon.

Harth, who settled a 1997 sexual harassment lawsuit against Trump, initially stayed quiet as the businessman’s run for the White House gathered speed this year. She was inspired to speak to the Guardian in July, after Trump said she and other women were liars, when their stories were shared as part of a New York Times investigation.

“I’m not going to get an apology from him,” Harth told the Guardian. “But he really should have been taught, if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything, OK? Don’t call me a liar.”



On Saturday in Gettysburg, Trump opened what was billed as a major policy address by saying he would sue all the women who have accused him of inappropriate sexual conduct. He has denied all such allegations.

His accusers, he said, had told “fabricated stories” that were part of a massive conspiracy perpetrated against him by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the media.

“Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign, total fabrication,” he said, speaking hours before an 11th accuser, Jessica Drake, came forward at a press event in Los Angeles. On Monday WGIR radio’s New Hampshire Today broadcast remarks by Trump in which he said sarcastically of Drake, a porn star and sex educator: “Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.”

Trump also said “the events never happened” and added: “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

Trump has threatened to sue over allegations of sexual misbehavior, most recently the New York Times. The Times general counsel replied in a letter earlier this month, explaining the paper would not retract its report.

“Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself,” wrote Times general counsel David McCraw.

Trump’s wife threatened to sue People magazine for publishing the story of an alleged assault of its writer Natasha Stoynoff, an allegation that Donald Trump has denied.

Melania Trump contended that a minor detail in Stoynoff’s story – that the two women saw each other in New York long after the assault had taken place – was incorrect. People responded by publishing the accounts of six witnesses who corroborated Stoynoff’s story.



On Monday, Harth’s lawyer, Lisa Bloom, said attempts to threaten Trump’s accusers into silence would not work.

“My law firm will continue to proudly represent Jill and any other accusers sued by Donald Trump and crowd-fund defense costs,” Bloom said in a statement, adding that she would subpoena Trump’s business and personal records for “any recordings that may exist in which he brags about sexual assault”.

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The 11 women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual assault came forward after the publication two weeks ago of leaked Access Hollywood audio and video from 2005, in which Trump is heard bragging to TV host Billy Bush about actions amounting to serial sexual assault, including a claim that he was able to “grab” women “by the pussy”.

The actions described in the remarks bore similarities to Harth’s account of what she says Trump did to her in the early 1990s while purporting to give her a “tour” of his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate.

Trump apologized for the remarks, which he said were “locker room talk”. Questioned at the second presidential debate, he denied ever having done the things he described. Melania Trump and others have sought to dismiss the comments as an instance of “boys will be boys” behavior.

Bloom and her client contend that Trump’s recorded comments are part of an ongoing effort to bully women into staying quiet, something other women the Guardian has interviewed have described.

“I reject Donald Trump’s effort to intimidate and silence women,” Bloom said.