Flashback: October 2016, leaked video from Access Hollywood showed then candidate Donald Trump bragging that he kisses and gropes women without their consent. This admission on tape inspired more than a dozen women to reveal that they were victims of Donald Trump.
One accuser was Summer Zervos, she was a former Apprentice contestant and alleges that in 2007 Trump kissed her aggressively and groped her breast without her consent.
Trump has called the allegations lies and boasted that he would counter sue his victims. He has failed to do this and instead, Zervos sued him for defamation after he called her a 'liar'. Zervos is seeking $2,914 in damages.
Tuesday morning in Manhattan the New York State Supreme Court heard oral arguments for an hour to determine whether this case will make its way through the courts.
Zervos' attorney Gloria Allred made a statement immediately following the hearing, “No man is above the law, even the president of the United States.” She added: “Reputation matters. Truth matters.”
Marc Kasowitz, an attorney for Trump, believes that the case should be dismissed or suspended until he is no longer President on the grounds that a sitting President can't be sued in state court and that his comments were just 'political rhetoric'. He argued that Zervos was a 'tool to elect Clinton':
“She injected herself, she instigated a debate,” he said, saying that the allegations were “purely political,” because they were made weeks before the election, and meant to damage Trump at the polls.
Another attorney for Ms. Zervos, Mariann Wang, argued that the case should continue citing the SCOTUS ruling allowing Paula Jones to sue Bill Clinton for sexual harassment while he was in office.
Wang disagrees that the case is political. “Defense makes much of fact that it is politically motivated but he doesn’t quote from Ms. Zervos’s statement,” she said. “It is factual, careful and describes him thrusting his genitals at her and grabbing her breasts.”
Read more at ABC News