What did Donald Trump do today?

He once again waded into an accusation of rape on the side of the accused rapists.

Thanks in large part to a recent editorial in the Cornell University student newspaper, the Cornell Sun, there has been renewed interest in the case of a woman who says she was gang-raped by members of the Chi Phi fraternity there. The woman is suing those seven members, and the university itself, over the incident. Her complaint is graphic and horrifying, and includes evidence that the event was documented on a fraternity group chat in real time as other members were invited to assault her while she was drugged and unable to resist.

 

The local prosecutor, Matthew van Houten, had initially dismissed the case. He hastily reopened it after the editorial drew nationwide attention to it, but New York Gov. Kathy Hochul took it out of his hands today, assigning instead it to a special prosecutor. Hochul said that the reason she was assigning it to New York state Attorney General Letitia James instead was that she had lost confidence in van Houten.

James won a civil suit for fraud against Trump and the Trump Organization in 2024, which infuriated Trump. He retaliated on his return to office, trying unsuccessfully three times to secure a federal indictment against her. (It is almost unheard of for a grand jury to refuse to return a bill of indictment even once.)

That history was enough for Trump to decide that the accused rapists wouldn't get a fair trial, because, he said today, she "is a corrupt person." He then repeated a racially derogatory nickname he first gave her when she was leading the fraud prosecution against him. (James is Black.)

But as recently as yesterday, Trump had said he didn't know much about the case, and that he trusted Cornell University to "do what's right." In reality, Cornell had already washed its hands of the incident over a year ago, when it gave the accused students temporary suspensions and, according to the lawsuit, assigned them essays. Cornell has not confirmed any more severe sanctions against the accused students.

In other words, Trump appears to be jumping in front of the spotlight here, on the side of the accused rapists and Cornell University, either because a political enemy of his is involved as the prosecutor, or simply because it's getting nationwide attention.

Trump, who a civil jury found liable for rape, has a long history of defending other men accused of rape or other abuses of women—and that's entirely setting aside the question of what he knew about his longtime friend Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring, and the favors he's continued to do for Epstein's co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Among other men accused or convicted of serious sexual crimes, Trump has publicly defended:

• Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), who is accused of assaulting his wife and 2-year-old daughter, and who tried to blackmail a Republican senator to cover it up. The victim, who knew Trump and his wife Melania personally, told him about it directly, but was ignored. After the scandal broke, Trump expressed sadness for what Max Miller was having to go through.

• Conservative TV pundit Bill O'Reilly. After O'Reilly had settled lawsuits from five different women who were the targets of workplace sexual harassment by him, Trump said he didn't think a settlement was the right move, because "I don't think Bill did anything wrong." 

• Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was so credibly accused of sexually stalking and in some cases assaulting underage girls that one of the most reliably Republican states in the country elected a Democrat, Sen. Doug Jones, rather than vote for Moore. Trump said that he was satisfied that Moore had done nothing wrong because "he totally denies it," ignoring direct testimony from the women accusing him and other witnesses. 

• Former boxer Mike Tyson, who was convicted of raping an 18-year-old in 1991. In Trump's understanding, there was "a girl that, late in the evening, knocked on his door, was taken in, was raped perhaps, perhaps not." But Trump suggested she was lying because the young woman was "smiling" at a beauty pageant she was competing in the next day.
  
  (Trump presumably knows that smiling is a part of pageants: he operated a series of them himself, including "Miss Teen USA," where he was accused by contestants—including underage girls—of using his ownership of the contests to watch them undress in changing rooms. He's admitted to this, at least where adult contestants were concerned.)
  
  
• Fox News executive Roger Ailes, whose backing of Trump helped get him elected in 2016, and who was accused of sexual harassment by at least four women, including on-air hosts Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly. Trump pointed to Ailes' importance in the broadcasting industry as an excuse, adding "I'm sure it was friendly."
  
  
• Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, whose physical and sexual assault attempts include:
  
  
• attacking a female reporter for the conservative outlet Breitbart News, for which he was arrested but not prosecuted
   
• unwanted sexual touching of a woman performing at a Trump holiday party  

• repeated sexual touching and unwanted graphic sexual comments to the wife of a Trump donor at a separate party

Trump refused to fire Lewandowski, and blamed his accusers for how "a man could be destroyed" over their allegations. In reality, far from having his life destroyed, Lewandowski continued to work in Trump's orbit, most recently as part of the Department of Homeland Security. He was reportedly engaged in an extramarital affair with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Noem was fired after reports of her using a luxury government jet to carry on the affair leaked.

• White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter, who was accused of physical abuse by both of his ex-wives. Trump's Chief of Staff, John Kelly, forced Porter out to avoid dragging the scandal into the White House, only to have Trump say he believed Porter: "He said very strongly yesterday that he's innocent so you have to talk to him about that, but we absolutely wish him well, he did a very good job." 

• Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault by multiple women. Trump forced the FBI to slow-roll a last-minute investigation into those claims before Kavanaugh was confirmed. Then, once Kavanaugh had squeaked by his Senate confirmation vote and was safely installed, Trump declared that the accusers were all lying and that Kavanaugh should sue them.

Trump has been independently and credibly accused of sexual harassment or assault by at least 28 women.

Why does this matter?

• The reason a jury of his peers found Trump to have committed massive fraud related to his business organization is that he committed massive fraud, not because Letitia James did anything wrong. 

• The reason a jury of his peers found Trump liable for raping E. Jean Carroll is because he raped her, not because all women who accuse men of rape are liars.  

• The last thing this tragic and horrifying story needed was Donald Trump making himself a part of it.