Trump in Twitter spat with woman who accused him of sexual harassment

The US president has engaged in a Twitter fight with a woman who has accused him of forcibly kissing her when she worked at Trump Tower in 2006.

Rachel Crooks’ allegations against Donald Trump have been reported before, but it was her appearance on the front page of the Washington Post on Tuesday – in an article headlined “Is anyone listening? This Trump accuser keeps asking herself that. But she plans to keep talking about that day in 2006” – that offended the president.

Responding to the article, Trump used Twitter to dismiss Crooks as “a woman I don’t know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met”.

He went on to describe the report as “fake news” and claim that the kiss “never happened!”.

“Who would do this in a public space with live security cameras running?” the president asked.

Crooks responded by urging Trump to release the security tape from Trump Tower.

“Please, by all means, share the footage from the hallway outside the 24th floor residential elevator bank on the morning of January 11 2006. Let’s clear this up for everyone,” she wrote.

She later told CNN: “I would think as our president he would have more important things to do than tweet at me and try to discredit my story.

“I know what’s true, he knows what’s true and I think he should be afraid of that.”

Trump has dismissed Crooks’s allegations of sexual misconduct before. But Crooks is refusing to go away and is attempting to win a seat in the state legislature of her native Ohio in the hope it will help get her message heard.

The 35-year-old university administrator launched her campaign in early February as a first-time candidate and a Democrat, after initially coming forward during the presidential election campaign.

“I think my voice should have been heard then, and I’ll still fight for it to be heard now,” she said at the time.

Crooks is one of more than a dozen women who have accused the president of inappropriate behaviour in the past – allegations Trump has denied.