Woman alleges Trump groped her in front of Jeffrey Epstein

A former model has alleged in a CNN interview that she was groped by former President Donald Trump in the 1990s.

Stacey Williams says the incident occurred in 1993 after disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who she says she was in a relationship with at the time, brought her to meet Trump at Trump Tower in New York City.

“The second he [Trump] was in front of me, he pulled me into him, and his hands were just on me and didn’t come off,” Ms Williams told the broadcaster.

The Trump campaign has denied the claim, noting that the former model originally shared the story at an event called "Survivors for Kamala", in support of Trump's rival, the Democratic White House nominee Kamala Harris.

"These accusations... announced on a Harris Campaign call two weeks before the election, are unequivocally false," Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

"It’s obvious this fake story was contrived by the Harris campaign to distract from the deeply concerning and newly unearthed allegations that the Second 'Gentleman,' Doug Emhoff, 'forcefully slapped' his ex-girlfriend.'"

Doug Emhoff, Harris's husband, was accused by an alleged ex-girlfriend of slapping her in 2012 in a Daily Mail report that granted her anonymity.

The BBC has not identified the alleged ex-girlfriend of Emhoff, or the veracity of her claim.

Emhoff has denied the allegation via a spokesperson. The Harris campaign did not respond to a BBC request for comment.

Ms Williams said on CNN that Trump greeted her and his hands touched "the side of my breasts, on my hips, back down to my butt, back up... they were just on me the whole time", while Epstein and the former president smiled and talked to each other.

She described it as "an out of body experience" and said she "froze".

Shortly after the alleged incident, Williams said that she broke up with Epstein, who was arrested for sex crimes in 2019 and died by suicide while awaiting trial.

Several women have come forward accusing Trump of sexual assault since he announced his candidacy for president in 2016. He has repeatedly denied these claims.

In 2023, a civil jury found the Republican White House nominee liable for sexually abusing E Jean Carroll, a writer. She has won two defamation lawsuits against him after the former president made denigrating comments about her.