Islam Times - Trump 'had affair with ex-Playboy model'

Islam Times - US President Donald Trump allegedly had a sexual relationship more than a decade ago with a Playboy model named Karen McDougal, who also claims her story was silenced in the months before the businessman was elected president, according to a report.

In a piece published Friday in The New Yorker magazine, McDougal claimed that she had a nine-month affair with Trump from June 2006 until April 2007.

McDougal claims Trump met her at a Playboy party in Los Angeles, California, in June 2006 during a taping of his reality show, the Apprentice.

The story was first reported by The Wall Street Journal in November 2016, though McDougal declined to comment at that time.

McDougal said American Media Inc. paid her $150,000 for signing a contract that granted the company exclusive ownership of her account.

The White House has denied allegations of an affair between Trump and Clifford. “This is an old story that is just more fake news. The president says he never had a relationship with McDougal,” a White House spokesperson said.

The new report comes amid an ongoing wave of revelations about sexual harassment in the US, which has toppled a number of powerful men in entertainment, politics, business and the media.

The latest allegation of Trump’s extramarital affair and a subsequent payoff mirrors the account of Stephanie Clifford, a former porn star who Trump met at a golf event in 2006, a year after his marriage to Melania.

Trump's lawyer had arranged a $130,000 payment to Clifford a month before the 2016 presidential election to prevent her from publicly discussing the alleged sexual encounter, The Wall Street Journal reported last month.

Nearly 20 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, ranging from unwanted touching to groping to assault. Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and sometimes claimed that he does not know the women. The White House has called his accusers liars.

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.