Ten years ago this week, on October 7, 2016, the world heard Donald Trump on the Access Hollywood tape, bragging that when you’re a star, women “let you do it.” He called it locker room talk and won the election a month later.
A decade on, it’s no longer just talk. A jury found Trump sexually abused a woman, and this summer the Supreme Court made that verdict final. And over those same ten years, Trump has stood by, hired, endorsed or pardoned a long list of men accused of abusing women, girls and partners. Here’s the record, in his own words where possible.
What did the jury find in the E. Jean Carroll case?
In May 2023, a Manhattan jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s, and for defaming her, and awarded her $5 million. On June 29, the Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. In August, it turned down his request to reconsider. Trump paid the judgment, PBS reported. The verdict can’t be challenged anymore.
A second jury ordered him to pay $83.3 million for defaming Carroll again. Trump and the Justice Department are asking the Supreme Court to toss that one too. Trump still denies it all and calls the case a hoax.
How many women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct?
About two dozen women have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct going back to the 1970s, according to The 19th. Several described him reaching under their skirts or kissing them without consent. Trump has denied every accusation and called the women liars.
What was Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?
They were friends for years. In 2002, Trump told New York magazine, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Last September, Epstein’s estate gave Congress a 2003 birthday book with a letter bearing Trump’s signature, framed by a drawing of a naked woman and ending, “may every day be another wonderful secret,” Al Jazeera reported. Trump calls it fake. He signed the law forcing the Justice Department to release its Epstein files in November, after months of resisting it, and the DOJ put out about 3 million more documents in January.
In 2020, after Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested for helping him abuse girls, Trump said, “I just wish her well, frankly.” She’s now serving 20 years for sex trafficking. Trump has never ruled out a pardon, even after his attorney general, Todd Blanche, said he wouldn’t recommend one.
Which accused men has Trump defended or promoted?
- Pete Hegseth. A woman told police he sexually assaulted her in a Monterey, California, hotel in 2017. He wasn’t charged, said it was consensual, and later paid her in a confidential settlement, ABC News reported. Trump put him in charge of the Pentagon, where he still serves.
- Matt Gaetz. Trump picked him for attorney general in 2024. A bipartisan House Ethics report later found “substantial evidence” he paid for sex, including with a 17-year-old girl in 2017, the AP reported. He was never charged and denies it. The nomination collapsed before the report came out.
- Roy Moore. Several women said the Alabama Senate candidate pursued or assaulted them when they were teenagers. Trump backed him anyway in 2017, repeating that “he totally denies it.”
- Rob Porter. The White House aide resigned in 2018 after two ex-wives accused him of abuse. Trump’s response: Porter “did a very good job” and “said very strongly yesterday he’s innocent.”
- Corey Lewandowski. Trump’s 2016 campaign manager was charged with misdemeanor battery over unwanted sexual advances toward a donor’s wife. He cut a deal for counseling and community service without admitting guilt, then became the most powerful aide at Homeland Security until he left this year.
What about the January 6 pardons?
On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 people charged over the Capitol riot. At least seven of them have been charged with child sex crimes, according to the watchdog group CREW. One, Andrew Paul Johnson, was sentenced to life in prison this year for molesting children.
Has Trump supported people with racist records?
- The Central Park Five. In 1989, Trump paid $85,000 for full-page ads calling for the death penalty after five Black and Latino teenagers were charged in the jogger rape. They were later exonerated. Asked about it in 2019, he said, “You have people on both sides of that.”
- Nick Fuentes. In 2022, Trump hosted the white nationalist and Holocaust denier at Mar-a-Lago along with Kanye West. Trump said he didn’t know who Fuentes was.
- Mark Robinson. Trump called North Carolina’s Republican candidate for governor “Martin Luther King on steroids.” CNN later reported Robinson had called himself a “black NAZI” on a porn site’s message board, Mediaite noted. Robinson denied writing the posts.
- Paul Ingrassia. Trump nominated him to lead the Office of Special Counsel. He withdrew last October after texts surfaced saying he had “a Nazi streak” and that the MLK holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell,” the Boston Globe reported.
The BeezLoop Take
Nobody is guilty because of who their friends are, and several of these men were never charged. That’s fair. But look at who gets the benefit of the doubt. Five Black and Latino teenagers got full-page ads demanding their execution. Men accused of abusing women and girls get “he totally denies it,” “he did a very good job” and “I wish her well.”
That’s the pattern, and it isn’t a coincidence. Trump treats accusations against himself and his allies as attacks to be beaten, never as something to look into. A jury that heard the evidence found he sexually abused a woman. The Supreme Court let that stand. He’s still the president, and the men around him have learned that loyalty matters more than what they’re accused of.
The open question is for the voters who say they care about protecting women and kids: what would it take for this record to matter?
Also on BeezLoop: Fox News turned 30. Here’s the harassment history it left out, and how Republicans responded to the Cornell rape case.
Sources: CNN (Supreme Court, Carroll) · PBS NewsHour · The 19th · Boston Globe (Access Hollywood tape) · Snopes (2002 Epstein quote) · Al Jazeera (birthday letter) · CBS News (Epstein files) · KTVU (Maxwell) · MS NOW (Maxwell pardon) · ABC News (Hegseth) · News4Jax/AP (Gaetz ethics report) · CNBC (Rob Porter) · Reason (Roy Moore) · Yahoo News (Lewandowski) · Newser (Lewandowski) · CREW (Jan. 6 pardons) · Mediaite (Mark Robinson) · ABC7 (Fuentes dinner) · Boston Globe (Ingrassia) · PolitiFact (Central Park Five) · ABC News
