Women accusing Trump of sexual misconduct ‘should be heard’: UN envoy

NEW YORK, Dec 11 (APP):A senior member of the Trump administration has said that women who accuse President Donald Trump of sexual harassment or assault “should be heard.”
Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, appeared on CBS-TV’s ‘Face the Nation’ news programme on Sunday at the end of a week in which two Democrats and one Republican in Congress resigned due to alleged sexual misconduct.
She was asked how the public should assess the long list of women who have accused the president in similar terms.
“Women who accuse anyone should be heard. They should be heard and they should be dealt with,” Haley added.
“And I think we heard from them prior to the election. And I think any woman who has felt violated or felt mistreated in any way, they have every right to speak up,” she said.
Haley, a former governor who is of Indian ancestry, said “the time has come” to bring “a conscience” to the way women are treated in the United States.
Analysts call her comments a surprising break from the assertion by the administration that the allegations are simply unfounded and that voters dismissed them when they elected Trump.
More than a dozen women have accused Trump of unwanted sexual advances, including forcible kissing or groping.
Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said that the White House’s position is that the women are lying and that the American people settled the issue by electing Trump despite the accusations.
Press reports say there is growing concern within the administration that the president may not escape renewed scrutiny at a time when a number of powerful men have been forced to step down because of sexual impropriety.
Weeks before the presidential election last November, The Washington Post released a tape in which Trump boasted about how he sexually assaulted women because he was powerful.
The Access Hollywood tape triggered a wave of allegations against Trump. But the president in recent weeks has cast doubt on the authenticity of the 2005 tape, despite publicly acknowledging last year that, “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.”
Some of the women who first accused Trump during the presidential campaign have expressed a renewed desire to press their case.
The president, however, has so far escaped the fallout relatively unscathed. He has used Twitter to mock others accused of sexual misconduct, including Democratic Senator Al Franken, who announced his resignation last week.
Two lawmakers in the House of Representatives, Democratic Congressman John Conyers and Republican Congressman Trent Franks, have also stepped down over allegations of crude sexual behaviour.
Congressional Republicans have been sharply divided over how to respond to the case of Roy Moore, the Senate candidate in Alabama, who has been accused of molesting a teenage girl and pursuing other teenagers decades ago.
Trump has officially endorsed Moore, calling the allegations against him “troubling” but stressing that he is needed in the Senate to advance the Republican agenda.

APP Services