On October 26, the Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee released a report that contains a new, detailed allegation of rape against President Trump. The committee interviewed Beatrice Keul, a Swiss model who met Trump when she was a contestant in the Donald J. Trump American Dream Pageant in November 1993. According to Keul, during the pageant, “Donald Trump’s representative invited Keul to go upstairs at the Plaza Hotel to meet with Trump.” After she was ushered into the New York hotel suite, Keul said Trump grabbed her from behind “and forcibly raped her… tearing her dress and causing bleeding and bruising on multiple parts of her body.”
The allegation was included in the report as evidence of a broader claim regarding Trump’s relationship with child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Specifically, “[a] growing body of evidence demonstrates that Donald Trump was an active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women during the mid-to-late 1990s.”
Although Keul’s allegation is unproven, the report found that there were multiple factors that enhanced the “credibility of her claims,” including multiple witnesses who confirmed that Trump was sexually pursuing other contestants that evening. Epstein was also at the pageant, and the report noted that Trump’s alleged behavior that evening, including offering to arrange Keul’s admission to New York University, matches a pattern of activity by Epstein and his associates.
Keul has previously discussed a disturbing interaction with Trump at the pageant where she said he groped her, but she did not disclose the alleged rape. It is not uncommon for victims of sexual assault to take years to tell their stories, as a result of the trauma and fear of retribution from powerful figures.
Further, in 2023, Trump was found liable by a jury for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll in 1996, about two years after the alleged rape of Keul. In 2005, Trump was also recorded bragging about sexually assaulting women. “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” Trump told Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush. “Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.” Overall, the report included detailed accounts involving 11 women. Five of them, including two who were minors at the time, accused Trump of rape or sexual assault.
A White House spokesperson denied the allegations in the report. “None of these allegations are true,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said. “This ‘report’ is nothing more than a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans from the surging Republican momentum driven by President Trump’s historic achievements.”
Presented with these facts, a large majority of major media outlets have completely ignored Keul’s new detailed allegations. A Popular Information review of coverage by 25 major news outlets found that 20 did not publish any substantive news reporting on Keul’s allegations.
Of those 20 outlets, 13 did not cover the report from the House Judiciary Committee Democrats on their websites at all: ABC News, CBS News, CNN, NPR, PBS News, Business Insider, Axios, The Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Reuters.
Five outlets covered the report but did not mention Keul’s allegations: NBC News, The New York Times, Politico, The Hill, and The Guardian. The New York Times story on the report, which was just 323 words, not only ignored Keul’s new rape allegation but explicitly described the report as a rehashing of information that was already public:
A new report written by Democratic staff aides on the Judiciary Committee accuses Mr. Trump of being “an active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of young women,” though it largely cites allegations that have already been public.
A story in Forbes briefly referenced Keul’s allegations in a parenthetical, without naming her or providing any information about her allegations. “Only one of those five allegations had not previously been made public, journalist Julie K. Brown noted Monday,” Forbes reported. The LA Times produced no news reporting on Keul’s allegations but did publish an opinion column on November 1 covering the topic.
Five outlets provided substantive coverage of Keul’s allegations: USA Today, Time, Newsweek, HuffPost, and the Miami Herald.
In an interview with Newsweek, Keul said that since the report was issued she received an anonymous threat against her and her family. “I am scared,” Keul said. She also discussed why she did not report the rape contemporaneously. “In the 90s, it was impossible,” she said. “In the 90s, we didn’t have a voice, we didn’t have associations, we didn’t have anybody who was listening. It was taboo, and therefore, it was impossible to rely on anybody.”
Keul’s allegation was also featured prominently in a Miami Herald report co-written by Julie K. Brown, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of Epstein. Brown discussed Keul in even more detail in her newsletter. She says that the new account from Keul and accounts from other women have “patterns and similarities in their stories even though many of the women didn’t know each other.” Overall, Brown suggests the report could indicate that Trump and Epstein were “engaged in an intrasexual competition.” She said the issuance of the report indicates Democrats in Congress could launch a real investigation of these allegations against Trump — something the Department of Justice has apparently never done.
Brown suggests that the public should not only take Keul’s allegations seriously but also “take a new look” at previous allegations that have faded from the headlines. As it stands, however, the majority of the public is probably unaware of the existence of a new rape allegation and the broader issues raised in the report because most media outlets have chosen to ignore it.
There appears to be a different standard for Trump than President Clinton. In 1999, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the New York Times, all published news stories about Juanita Broaddrick’s allegation that she was raped in a hotel room by then-Arkansas Attorney General Clinton in April 1978. The Washington Post published the story on its front page and the New York Times ran an interview with Broaddrick. The papers covered the allegation even though Broaddrick’s account of her interactions with Clinton evolved over time. In January 1998, Broaddrick signed a sworn affidavit denying that Clinton had made “unwelcome sexual advances.”
That Keul already has received an anonymous threat since the publication of the report tells you all you need to know about why she wasn't more forthcoming about her allegation of rape against Trump. Our society regularly downplays evidence of sexual assault and rape and protects men accused of wrongdoing. The press, supposed bastion of factual information, isn't above the practice.
I think People magazine did cover the rape allegation and did so with a great headline for the article:
Former Miss Switzerland Beatrice Keul Alleges Donald Trump Raped Her at the Plaza Hotel in 1993.