WASHINGTON — A former beauty pageant contestant who said she rebuffed a sexual advance from President Donald Trump in 1993 now claims Trump raped her during the encounter, according to a report from House Democrats who will take the lead in any potential impeachment of Trump next year.
In a series of interviews with Democratic staff on the House Judiciary Committee, Beatrice Keul said Trump raped her that year in a “brutal” manner in a hotel room at Trump’s Plaza Hotel in Atlantic City after the couple spent time with Jeffrey Epstein, the now-deceased child sex trafficker who was among Trump’s closest friends at the time.
Democrats detailed Keul’s account in a lengthy report released Monday, saying it is consistent with several other already public accusations of sexual assault against Trump and describing it as a pattern of behavior that the president continued during his friendship with America’s most notorious sexual predator.
“Increasing evidence demonstrates that Donald Trump actively participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women in the mid-to-late 1990s,” the report said.
The document says the Trump administration illegally blocked the full release of the Justice Department files on Epstein in order to protect Trump and other former associates of Epstein, who killed himself while awaiting federal charges in 2020. Congress ordered the documents made public last fall.
“Government complicity in the cover-up to protect traffickers and rapists constitutes criminal obstruction of justice and an intolerable offense against a free society,” the report said. “The extent of the President of the United States’ involvement in a criminal sex trafficking ring is, without question, a major concern to Congress and the American people. »
If Democrats take back the House of Representatives in January, the Judiciary Committee will direct any possible impeachment of the president. Monday’s report, one of the most comprehensive committee reports Democrats have produced under Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Mary.), hints at how Democrats would use the subpoena power to make their case. For example, the report highlights several known Epstein-related documents that do not appear in the Justice Department’s public database.
The White House said none of the allegations in the report were true.
“This ‘report’ is nothing more than a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans from the Republican momentum generated by President Trump’s historic accomplishments,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in an email. “The president kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club because he was a bad guy, and he has been completely exonerated of anything involving Epstein.”
In addition to accusing Trump of sexual misconduct, the Democrats’ report said Attorney General Todd Blanche, the president’s former lawyer, “may have engaged in criminal obstruction of justice while acting on a mission to protect Trump,” citing his unusual prison interview with Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell last year, shortly before he was transferred to a minimum-security facility.
“The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard, Congress must have the complete records required by law, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators and the Justice Department’s cover-up and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice,” Raskin said in a statement.
Keul, who is Swiss, first described Trump’s unwanted advances in an interview with the Daily Mail in October 2024. She said Trump “jumped” on her and groped her, but that she eventually convinced him to stop. She was 24 years old at the time.
“I tried everything I could. Finally I said, ‘Let’s talk first’ or something, and then he slowed down,” Keul told the Daily Mail.
In interviews with Democratic staff on the Judiciary Committee this year, Keul said she met Trump at a November 1993 beauty pageant at her hotel, and that he said he would arrange a visa and acceptance to New York University. She said she then met Epstein, who introduced himself as “Don’s best friend.” She was then invited to an upstairs room where she said Trump assaulted her.
“Trump allegedly grabbed Keul from behind and forcibly raped her, tearing her dress and causing bleeding and bruising to several parts of her body,” the Democrats’ report said. “Keul described the rape as “brutal.” After the assault, according to Keul’s report, Trump sat her on the edge of the bed, reiterated his promises to arrange a visa and admission to NYU, and made her promise she would remain silent, saying, “(T)he show must go on.” »
The Democratic staff report does not provide transcripts of the interviews with Keul. The document does not say why Keul changed his story.
The report notes similarities between Keul’s account and that of several other accusers, including E. Jean Carroll, who said Trump sexually assaulted her in 1995 or 1996. A jury ruled in May 2023 that Trump sexually abused Carroll, with the judge calling Carroll’s rape accusation “substantially true.”
Trump infamously described forcing himself on women.
“When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he said in a conversation made public in 2005 during his first run for president in 2016. “You can do anything.”
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