Top allies of Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton planned to falsely accuse presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump of rape, a leaked file from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) shows.
The table of contents of the file shows that midway through the Democrats’ anti-Trump document is the supposed revelation that “Trump’s ex-wife accused him of rape.”
That entire section of the document includes references to a widely discredited hit piece from The Daily Beast’s Tim Mak.
“Donald Trump’s Ex-Wife Ivana Has Used The Words ‘Violated’ And ‘Rape’ To Describe a Sexual Encounter With Trump,” reads the subheading of that section.
Then it quotes from the headline and subheadline of Mak’s article from late July 2015. “Ex-Wife: Donald Trump Made Me Feel ‘Violated’ During Sex” was the headline and the sub-headline read: “Ivana Trump Once Accused The Real-Estate Tycoon Of ‘Rape’ Although She Later Clarified: Not In The ‘Criminal Sense.’”
The Democratic Party document repeated the accusation, which the Trump campaign was hit with in its earliest days as Mak and Fox News talk show host Megyn Kelly rushed the story on air before verifying its contents, over and over again.
The document quotes from Mak’s article:
It was an unfortunate turn of phrase for Trump—in more ways than one. Not only does the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination have a history of controversial remarks about sexual assault, but as it turns out, his ex- wife Ivana Trump once used ‘rape’ to describe an incident between them in 1989. She later said she felt ‘violated’ by the experience.
The document from the DNC quotes no other sources for the allegations but continues to go through claims about an interview regarding the story that Trump attorney Michael Cohen had given to The Daily Beast—and a follow-up on that part specifically, as reported by The Hill newspaper.
But the DNC document makes no mention of the fact that Ivana Trump—the woman who originally made the accusation in fury during divorce proceedings, but has since become friendly again with her ex-husband—said the accusations were not true the very next day.
Ivana Trump told CNN right after the story broke in The Daily Beast:
I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high tension during my divorce from Donald. The story is totally without merit. Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of. I have nothing but fondness for Donald and wish him the best of luck on his campaign. Incidentally, I think he would make an incredible president.
Ironically, The Daily Beast never made any attempt to verify the story with Ivana Trump before rushing the 1,700-word smear to print back in July. What’s perhaps most important about this situation is that, despite the story being entirely disproven about Trump—disproven by his own ex-wife no less— the DNC wanted to send Trump through the exact same ringer again at one point or another during the forthcoming battle with Hillary Clinton. The Democrats clearly care not one bit about accuracy, since the Party’s official opposition research files on Trump don’t even include the full story—or the fact that said accusations have been discredited.
The DNC opposition research file stolen by Russian hackers and printed online by Gawker among others contains many other planned hits on Trump, but nothing substantial enough to cause Trump much worry. Trump, in a statement, even said he believes the DNC did this on their own to distract from Hillary Clinton’s ever-burgeoning email scandal.
“We believe it was the DNC that did the ‘hacking’ as a way to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader,” Trump said. “Too bad the DNC doesn’t hack Crooked Hillary’s 33,000 missing emails.”
This playbook–falsely accusing Trump of rape–comes as new polling shows that Americans don’t view Hillary Clinton becoming the first woman to win the presidential nomination of either major U.S. political party to be “historic.” As Democrats and Hillary Clinton gear up to play the “woman card” over and over again against Trump, the Morning Consult poll–as Breitbart News previously reported–shows that they could care less about the phony Democratic “war on women” narrative.