Woman had alleged Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein raped her in 1994.

Woman had alleged Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein raped her in 1994.

A conference had been scheduled for December 2016.

A woman who had accused Donald Trump of raping her when she was a 13-year-old dropped her lawsuit against the Republican nominee on Friday.

One of the accuser’s attorneys, Thomas Meagher, filed a one-page voluntary dismissal in district court in New York late on Friday. Neither he nor a second attorney listed immediately responded to questions about the document.

The woman, who had filed suit earlier this year under the pseudonym Jane Doe, had alleged that Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein had raped her in 1994, when she was a 13-year-old aspiring model.

Trump’s accuser asserted that while she was exploring a modeling career in 1994, she attended a series of parties at the Manhattan home of prominent investor Jeffrey Epstein. She alleges that during those parties the real estate mogul tied her to a bed and raped her. She also claimed Epstein raped her during that series of gatherings.

The accuser’s lead attorney, Thomas Meagher of New Jersey, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He filed a one-page notice dismissing the case Friday evening in federal court in Manhattan. No explanation was given for the action.

Bloom did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

Through his attorney, Trump had flatly denied the woman’s allegations.

“It is categorically untrue. It is completely frivolous. It is baseless. It is irresponsible,” Trump attorney Alan Garten told POLITICO in September. “I won’t even discuss the merits because it gives it credibility that it doesn’t deserve.”

Doe named Trump and Epstein as defendants in the suits and says they knew she was well under 17 — the age of consent. “I understood that both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein knew that I was 13 years old,” she wrote.

This week she abruptly canceled a plan to speak publicly about the allegations, and another attorney, Lisa Bloom, cited “numerous threats” against her client.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/02/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit-13-year-old-cancels-public-event

How a serial sex abuser got an extraordinary deal. November 29, 2018.

Threats, yes, but I wonder if that "any potential co-conspirator" bit in Epstein's plea deal helped derail this suit?

https://www.metafilter.com/177952/How-a-serial-sex-abuser-got-an-extraordinary-deal

Further details of the child rape accusation against Donald Trump have been thrust into the spotlight after his accuser failed to show up at a press conference citing "great fear" after receiving "terrible threats".

Prosecutors Intend to Show Long Pattern of Threats and Baseless Claims by Trump

In a court filing, federal prosecutors laid out plans to use the former president’s trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election to show a yearslong history of using lies and intimidation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/us/politics/trump-election-trial.html

A Timeline of Donald Trump’s Creepiness While He Owned Miss Universe.

From walking into a teen dressing room to joking about his obligation to sleep with contestants, Trump's a storied pageant creep

https://youtu.be/hE9bVL9skIo

Donald Trump was forced to sell the Miss Universe Organization – which also includes sister scholarship programs Miss USA and Miss Teen USA – in 2015 after his incendiary comments about Mexicans drove away broadcasters NBC and Univision. But Trump owned the pageant for nearly two decades, during which time he would have had the opportunity to come into contact with nearly 4,000 beauty queens.

On the heels of the damaging videotape on which Trump and former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush salivated over Days of Our Live actress Arianne Zucker, and joked about sexually assaulting women, came allegations that Trump entered the Miss Teen USA changing room where girls as young as 15 were in various states of undress.

https://youtu.be/o21fXqguD7U

Mariah Billado, Miss Teen Vermont 1997 told BuzzFeed, “I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here.'” Three other teenage contestants from the same year confirmed the story. The former pageant contestants discussed their memories of the incident after former Miss Arizona Tasha Dixon told Los Angeles’ CBS affiliate that Trump entered the Miss USA dressing room in 2001 when she was a contestant.

“He just came strolling right in,” Dixon said. “There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Others girls were naked. Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half-naked changing into our bikinis.”

Dixon went on to say that employees of the Miss Universe Organization encouraged the contestants to lavish Trump with attention when he came in. “To have the owner come waltzing in, when we’re naked, or half-naked, in a very physically vulnerable position and then to have the pressure of the people that worked for him telling us to go fawn all over him, go walk up to him, talk to him, get his attention…”

The Trump campaign did not offer a response to either story, but in a 2005 appearance on Howard Stern’s show, Trump bragged about doing exactly what the women describe. “I’ll go backstage before a show, and everyone’s getting dressed and ready and everything else,” he said.

His position as the pageant’s owner entitled him to that kind of access, Trump explained, seemingly aware that what he was doing made the women uncomfortable. “You know, no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore I’m inspecting it… Is everyone OK? You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible-looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that,” he said.

(Billado told BuzzFeed she mentioned the incident to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, who shrugged it off, saying, “Yeah, he does that.”)

Here are other “highlights” from Trump’s storied history as a pageant creep.

1996 When he bought the Miss Universe pageant family, Trump told Stern in 2005, the pageant was “a sick puppy.” The relative hotness of contestants had seriously deteriorated in the preceding years, he explained to Stern, because the judges had begun placing a greater emphasis on brains over beauty. “They had a person that was extremely proud that a number of the women had become doctors,” Trump said. “And I wasn’t interested.”

The first Miss Universe crowned on Trump’s watch was Miss Venezuela, Alicia Machado. Hillary Clinton famously invoked Trump’s treatment of Machado during the first presidential debate. Machado remembers him calling her “Miss Piggy” because she gained weight and “Miss Housekeeping” because she’s Latina. Trump invited reporters to observe Machado exercising, against her protests. She told The New York Times earlier this year, “I was about to cry in that moment with all the cameras there. I said, ‘I don’t want to do this, Mr. Trump.’ He said, ‘I don’t care.'”

1997 The same year former contestants say Trump unexpectedly entered the Miss Teen USA dressing room, the reigning Miss Universe, Brook Antoinette Mahealani Lee, recalls Trump asking her about the looks of his daughter Ivanka, who was co-hosting the pageant. “‘Don’t you think my daughter’s hot? She’s hot, right?'” Mahealani Lee recalls Trump saying.

Also that year, Miss Utah, Temple Taggart, recalls Trump kissed her against her wishes. “He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, ‘Oh my God, gross.’ He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s inappropriate,'” Taggart told The New York Times. She says he did the same thing a few months later at Trump Tower, where he had invited her to discuss her career. To succeed in the entertainment industry, Trump advised 21-year-old Taggart to lie about her age. “We’re going to have to tell them you’re 17,” she remembers Trump saying.

2005 The same year Trump bragged to Howard Stern about barging into the dressing room while the women were changing, he declined to say whether he’d ever slept with a contestant. “It could be a conflict of interest. … But, you know, it’s the kind of thing you worry about later, you tend to think about the conflict a little bit later on,” Trump joked. A few beats later, he rethought his stance, joking that, as the pageant’s owner, it might be his “obligation” to sleep with the contestants.

2009 Miss California, Carrie Prejean, recalled in her memoir the way Trump would pit the women against each other, asking them to rate each other’s looks on the spot.

Donald Trump walked out with his entourage and inspected us closer than any general ever inspected a platoon. He would stop in front of a girl, look her up and down, and say, “Hmmm.” Then he would go on and do the same thing to the next girl. He took notes on a little pad as he went along. After he did this, Trump said: “O.K. I want all the girls to come forward.” …

Donald Trump looked at Miss Alabama.

“Come here,” he said.

She took one more step forward.

“Tell me, who’s the most beautiful woman here?”

Miss Alabama’s eyes swam around.

“Besides me?” she said. “Uh, I like Arkansas. She’s sweet.”

“I don’t care if she’s sweet,” Donald Trump said. “Is she hot?” …

It became clear that the point of the whole exercise was for him to divide the room between girls he personally found attractive and those he did not. Many of the girls found the exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after he left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began to impress “The Donald.”

Her recollection was boosted by an audio recording from the same year, obtained by TMZ, on which Trump can be heard asking the contestants for help picking out some of the best-looking women before the contest itself took place. “We get to choose a certain number [of contestants who will be guaranteed to make it through the first round]. You know why we do that? Because years ago when I first bought it, we chose ten people, I chose none and I get here and the most beautiful people were not chosen. And I went nuts. So we call it the Trump Rule.”

Later in the same tape, Trump can be heard talking up his son, Eric – who also served as the contest’s judge – to the assembled beauty queens: “I have a son, he’s very handsome; he’s 6-foot-6, and he was number one in his class in school.”

2010 Trump boasted to David Letterman that when he bought Miss USA, “I made the heels higher and the bathing suits smaller.”

2013 Cassandra Searles, Miss Washington 2013, recalls that when she was a contestant, the businessman demanded the women redo their introductions when they failed to look Trump in the eye. In a Facebook post this year, Searles called Trump a “misogynist” who “treated us like cattle” and “lined up so he could get a closer look at his property.” Other contestants from the same year, like Paromita Mitra of Mississippi, bolstered Searles recollection. Mitra commented, “I literally have nightmares about that process.

Searles added in a comment on her initial post’s thread, “He probably doesn’t want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room.”

2015 The 2015 Miss USA pageant was set to take place the first week of July – three weeks after Trump characterized Mexicans as rapists and criminals during his campaign kick-off event. One by one, the pageant’s hosts, judges, sponsors, and broadcasters dropped out. Trump was forced to sell the pageants to WME in September 2015.

Update, October 13th, 10:30 a.m. ET: The Trump campaign issued a statement to Rolling Stone categorically denying these allegations and questioning the political motivation behind reporting on them, adding, “Mr. Trump has a fantastic record of empowering women throughout his career, and a more accurate story would be to show how he’s been a positive influence in the lives of so many.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/a-timeline-of-donald-trumps-creepiness-while-he-owned-miss-universe-191860/

'No Blame?' ABC News finds 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news-finds-17-cases-invoking-trump/story?id=58912889

Opinion Take Trump at his word when he threatens to punish his enemies

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/13/trump-threaten-punish-enemies-president/

Donald Trump’s Latest Threats Really Are About the Violence

It can be tempting to dismiss Trump’s threats against his perceived opponents as mere bluster.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-threatens-letitia-james/

IN A GAME OF "IS IT MORE LIKELY THAN NOT" DID DONALD TRUMP THREATEN THE RAPE VICTIM?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-threatened-to-kill-rape-accuser-if-she-reported-him-a7394846.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/04/donald-trump-teenage-rape-accusations-lawsuit-dropped

https://www.girardslaw.com/library/trump-child-rape-lawsuit-papers.cfm

https://www.girardslaw.com/library/Binder21.pdf

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit-dropped-230770

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/3/13501364/trump-rape-13-year-old-lawsuit-katie-johnson-allegation

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-rape-trial-woman-testifies-that-she-was-also-sexually-attacked-by-trump

https://www.scribd.com/doc/316341058/Donald-Trump-Jeffrey-Epstein-Rape-Lawsuit-and-Affidavits

Former National Enquirer Publisher Testifies Again in Trump Inquiry

David Pecker has been hiding Trump’s dirty laundry for years, and investigators want to know what he’s got.

Pecker's role in buying and suppressing negative stories to protect Trump, his friend, was described in federal court papers in 2018 and was likely central to his grand jury testimony.

The details of Pecker's so-called "catch and kill" efforts on behalf of Trump were part of the 2018 federal case against Cohen, who pleaded guilty to fronting the $130,000 payment to Daniels. Federal prosecutors called the payment an illegal campaign contribution designed to influence the election by burying Daniels' potentially damaging account.

The ex-publisher "offered to help deal with negative stories about (Trump's) relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided," court papers said at the time.

The witness, David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer was a key player in the hush-money episode. He and the tabloid’s top editor helped broker the deal between the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer at the time.

https://www.businessinsider.com/national-enquirer-david-pecker-testifies-against-trump-hush-money-2023-3

Fox News reportedly killed a story — to protect Trump

Fox News reportedly sat on the story of Donald Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels and the cover-up of it ahead of the 2016 election in order to protect Trump.

On Monday, the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer published a detailed story on the relationship between the president and Fox News. The report contains a number of eyebrow-raising tidbits, including that Fox had the opportunity to publish a story about one of Trump’s alleged affairs but didn’t. Oliver Darcy first reported about the incident at CNN in 2018.

Daniels, a porn actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 to keep quiet about it ahead of the 2016 election.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/4/18249846/trump-new-yorker-gary-cohn-stormy-daniels

Steve Bannon contacted Jeffrey Epstein over worries he would flip on Trump

Trump wasn’t the only one worried about Epstein’s potentially loose lips. Wolff claims Steve Bannon, then the former president’s chief strategist, “repeatedly” called Epstein up.

https://conspiranon.blogspot.com/2022/09/steve-bannon-contacted-jeffrey-epstein.html

At least 26 women have accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct since the 1970s.

Renewed attention was brought to the allegations amid the #MeToo movement.

https://www.businessinsider.com/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-trial-carrolldefense-accusers-have-trump-derangement-syndrome-2023-5

"We Were All Naked” When Donald Trump Walked Through Beauty Queen Dressing Room

Trump: "I sort of get away with things like that.”

A former Miss New Hampshire told BuzzFeed News last spring that Donald Trump strolled through the dressing rooms backstage at the 2000 Miss USA pageant and stared at the naked contestants.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jessicagarrison/we-were-all-naked-when-donald-trump-walked-in

Donald Trump engaged in crude and demeaning conversations about women over a many years with radio shock-jock Howard Stern. Listen to some of the audio.

Step back into the 1990s, when Sean “Diddy” Combs and Donald Trump were both kings of the New York nightlife scene.

Before politics and business took center stage, these two were regularly spotted at the city’s hottest events and exclusive parties. From celebrity-studded birthday bashes to high-profile charity galas, Diddy and Trump’s early bond was built in the heart of Manhattan’s elite circles.

But with Diddy’s recent indictment making headlines, his early connection with Trump is once again under the spotlight. Watch as we dive into the glitzy world they shared—complete with luxurious parties, bold fashion, and iconic moments that defined New York’s social scene in the 90s—and explore how these high-flying days now stand in stark contrast to the serious legal challenges they both face today.

All the assault allegations against Donald Trump, recapped

Katie Johnson's full testimony of 2/11/16

https://youtu.be/gnib-OORRRo

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/assault-allegations-donald-trump-recapped

All Documents in the Doe v. Trump Lawsuits

October 12, 2016

https://thememoryhole2.org/blog/doe-v-trump

2016: Former Models for Donald Trump’s Agency Say They Violated Immigration Rules and Worked Illegally.

“It’s like modern-day slavery.”

Republican nominee Donald Trump has placed immigration at the core of his presidential campaign. He has claimed that undocumented immigrants are “taking our jobs” and “taking our money,” pledged to deport them en masse, and vowed to build a wall on the Mexican border. At one point he demanded a ban on Muslims entering the country. Speaking to supporters in Iowa on Saturday, Trump said he would crack down on visitors to the United States who overstay their visas and declared that when any American citizen “loses their job to an illegal immigrant, the rights of that American citizen have been violated.” And he is scheduled to give a major address on immigration in Arizona on Wednesday night.

But the mogul’s New York modeling agency, Trump Model Management, has profited from using foreign models who came to the United States on tourist visas that did not permit them to work here, according to three former Trump models, all noncitizens, who shared their stories with Mother Jones. Financial and immigration records included in a recent lawsuit filed by a fourth former Trump model show that she, too, worked for Trump’s agency in the United States without a proper visa.

Foreigners who visit the United States as tourists are generally not permitted to engage in any sort of employment unless they obtain a special visa, a process that typically entails an employer applying for approval on behalf of a prospective employee. Employers risk fines and possible criminal charges for using undocumented labor.

Founded in 1999, Trump Model Management “has risen to the top of the fashion market,” boasts the Trump Organization’s website, and has a name “that symbolizes success.” According to a financial disclosure filed by his campaign in May, Donald Trump earned nearly $2 million from the company, in which he holds an 85 percent stake. Meanwhile, some former Trump models say they barely made any money working for the agency because of the high fees for rent and other expenses that were charged by the company.

Canadian-born Rachel Blais spent nearly three years working for Trump Model Management. After first signing with the agency in March 2004, she said, she performed a series of modeling gigs for Trump’s company in the United States without a work visa. At Mother Jones‘ request, Blais provided a detailed financial statement from Trump Model Management and a letter from an immigration lawyer who, in the fall of 2004, eventually secured a visa that would permit her to work legally in the United States. These records show a six-month gap between when she began working in the United States and when she was granted a work visa. During that time, Blais appeared on Trump’s hit reality TV show, The Apprentice, modeling outfits designed by his business protégés. As Blais walked the runway, Donald Trump looked on from the front row.

Two other former Trump models—who requested anonymity to speak freely about their experiences, and who we are giving the pseudonyms Anna and Kate—said the agency never obtained work visas on their behalf, even as they performed modeling assignments in the United States. (They provided photographs from some of these jobs, and Mother Jones confirmed with the photographers or stylists that these shoots occurred in the United States.)

Each of the three former Trump models said she arrived in New York with dreams of making it big in one of the world’s most competitive fashion markets. But without work visas, they lived in constant fear of getting caught. “I was pretty on edge most of the time I was there,” Anna said of the three months in 2009 she spent in New York working for Trump’s agency.

“I was there illegally,” she said. “A sitting duck.”

According to three immigration lawyers consulted by Mother Jones, even unpaid employment is against the law for foreign nationals who do not have a work visa. “If the US company is benefiting from that person, that’s work,” explained Anastasia Tonello, global head of the US immigration team at Laura Devine Attorneys in New York. These rules for immigrants are in place to “protect them from being exploited,” she said. “That US company shouldn’t be making money off you.”

Two of the former Trump models said Trump’s agency encouraged them to deceive customs officials about why they were visiting the United States and told them to lie on customs forms about where they intended to live. Anna said she received a specific instruction from a Trump agency representative: “If they ask you any questions, you’re just here for meetings.”

Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, declined to answer questions about Trump Model Management’s use of foreign labor. “That has nothing to do with me or the campaign,” she said, adding that she had referred Mother Jones‘ queries to Trump’s modeling agency. Mother Jones also sent detailed questions to Trump Model Management. The company did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment.

“Honestly, they are the most crooked agency I’ve ever worked for, and I’ve worked for quite a few,” said Rachel Blais.

Fashion industry sources say that skirting immigration law in the manner that the three former Trump models described was once commonplace in the modeling world. In fact, Politico recently raised questions about the immigration status of Donald Trump’s current wife, Melania, during her days as a young model in New York in the 1990s. (In response to the Politico story, Melania Trump said she has “at all times been in compliance with the immigration laws of this country.”)

Kate, who worked for Trump Model Management in 2004, marveled at how her former boss has recently branded himself as an anti-illegal-immigration crusader on the campaign trail. “He doesn’t want to let anyone into the US anymore,” she said. “Meanwhile, behind everyone’s back, he’s bringing in all of these girls from all over the world and they’re working illegally.”

Now 31 years old and out of the modeling business, Blais once appeared in various publications, including Vogue, Elle, and Harpers Bazaar, and she posed wearing the designs of such fashion luminaries as Gianfranco Ferré, Dolce & Gabbana, and Jean Paul Gaultier. Her modeling career began when she was 16 and spanned numerous top-name agencies across four continents. She became a vocal advocate for models and appeared in a 2011 documentary, Girl Model, that explored the darker side of the industry. In a recent interview, she said her experience with Trump’s firm stood out: “Honestly, they are the most crooked agency I’ve ever worked for, and I’ve worked for quite a few.”

Freshly signed to Trump Model Management, the Montreal native traveled to New York City by bus in April 2004. Just like “the majority of models who are young, [have] never been to NYC, and don’t have papers, I was just put in Trump’s models’ apartment,” she said. Kate and Anna also said they had lived in this apartment.

“The apartment was like a sweatshop,” said a former Trump model.

Models’ apartments, as they’re known in the industry, are dormitory-style quarters where agencies pack their talent into bunks, in some cases charging the models sky-high rent and pocketing a profit. According to the three former models, Trump Model Management housed its models in a two-floor, three-bedroom apartment in the East Village, near Tompkins Square Park. Mother Jones is withholding the address of the building, which is known in the neighborhood for its model tenants, to protect the privacy of the current residents.

When Blais lived in the apartment, she recalled, a Trump agency representative who served as a chaperone had a bedroom to herself on the ground floor of the building. A narrow flight of stairs led down to the basement, where the models lived in two small bedrooms that were crammed with bunk beds—two in one room, three in the other. An additional mattress was located in a common area near the stairs. At times, the apartment could be occupied by 11 or more people.

“We’re herded into these small spaces,” Kate said. “The apartment was like a sweatshop.”

Trump Model Management recruited models as young as 14. “I was by far the oldest in the house at the ripe old age of 18,” Anna said. “The bathroom always smelled like burned hair. I will never forget the place!” She added, “I taught myself how to write, ‘Please clean up after yourself’ in Russian.”

A detailed financial statement provided by Blais shows that Trump’s agency charged her as much as $1,600 a month for a bunk in a room she shared with five others.

Living in the apartment during a sweltering New York summer, Kate picked a top bunk near a street-level window in the hopes of getting a little fresh air. She awoke one morning to something splashing her face. “Oh, maybe it’s raining today,” she recalled thinking. But when she peered out the window, “I saw the one-eyed monster pissing on me,” she said. “There was a bum pissing on my window, splashing me in my Trump Model bed.”

“Such a glamorous industry,” she said.

Blais, who previously discussed some of her experiences in an interview with Public Radio International, said the models weren’t in a position to complain about their living arrangements. “You’re young,” she remarked, “and you know that if you ask too many questions, you’re not going to get the work.”

A detailed financial statement provided by Blais shows that Trump’s agency charged her as much as $1,600 a month for a bunk in a room she shared with five others. Kate said she paid about $1,200 a month—”highway robbery,” she called it. For comparison, in the summer of 2004, an entire studio apartment nearby was advertised at $1,375 a month.

From April to October 2004, Blais traveled between the United States and Europe, picking up a string of high-profile fashion assignments for Trump Model Management and making a name for herself in the modeling world. During the months she spent living and working in New York, Blais said, she only had a tourist visa. “Most of the girls in the apartment that were not American didn’t have a work visa,” she recalled.

Anna and Kate also said they each worked for Trump’s agency while holding tourist visas. “I started out doing test-shoots but ended up doing a couple of lookbooks,” Anna said. (A lookbook is a modeling portfolio.) “Nothing huge, but definitely shoots that classified as ‘work.'”

Employers caught hiring noncitizens without proper visas can be fined up to $16,000 per employee and, in some cases, face up to six months in prison.

The three former Trump models said Trump’s agency was aware of the complications posed by their foreign status. Anna and Kate said the company coached them on how to circumvent immigration laws. Kate recalled being told, “When you’re stuck at immigration, say that you’re coming as a tourist. If they go through your luggage and they find your portfolio, tell them that you’re going there to look for an agent.”

Anna recalled that prior to her arrival, Trump agency staffers were “dodging around” her questions about her immigration status and how she could work legally in the United States. “Until finally,” she said, “it came to two days before I left, and they told me my only option was to get a tourist visa and we could work the rest out when I got there. We never sorted the rest out.”

Arriving in the United States, Anna grew terrified. “Going through customs for this trip was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life,” she added. “It’s hard enough when you’re there perfectly innocently, but when you know you’ve lied on what is essentially a federal document, it’s a whole new world.”

“Am I sweaty? Am I red? Am I giving this away?” Anna remembered thinking as she finally faced a customs officer. After making it through immigration, she burst into tears.

Industry experts say that violating immigration rules has been the status quo in the fashion world for years. “It’s been common, almost standard, for modeling agencies to encourage girls to come into the country illegally,” said Sara Ziff, the founder of the Model Alliance, an advocacy group that claimed a major success in 2014 after lobbying the New York State legislature to pass a bill increasing protections for child models.

Bringing models into the United States on tourist visas was “very common,” said Susan Scafidi, the director of Fordham University’s Fashion Law Institute. “I’ve had tons of agencies tell me this, that this used to happen all the time, and that the cover story might be something like ‘I’m coming in for a friend’s birthday,’ or ‘I’m coming in to visit my aunt,’ that sort of thing.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/donald-trump-model-management-illegal-immigration/

https://www.vox.com/2016/8/30/12714288/trump-model-immigration

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/style/donald-trumps-modeling-agency-violated-924267/