Thread by @pleasesaveour

Thread:

On 1 September 1991, a large private yacht cruised towards the Statue of Liberty. Downstairs, a party was in flow. Scores of teenage girls in evening dresses and miniskirts, some as young as 14, danced under disco lights.
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theguardian.com/us-news/2020/m…

It could have been a high school prom, were it not for the crowd of older men surrounding them. As the evening wore on, some of the men – many old enough to be the girls’ fathers, or even grandfathers – joined them on the dancefloor, pressing themselves against the girls.

One balding man in a suit wrapped his arms around two young models, leering into a film camera that was documenting the evening: “Can you get some beautiful women around me, please?”
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The party aboard the Spirit of New York was one of several events that Donald Trump, then 45, attended with a group of 58 aspiring young models that September. They had travelled from around the world to compete in Elite’s Look of the Year competition
historyofbeauty.com/emy/emy1983_19…

Trump was closely involved in the competition. In 1991, he was a headline sponsor, throwing open the Plaza, his lavish, chateau-style hotel overlooking Central Park, transforming it into the main venue and accommodating the young models.
huffpost.com/entry/donald-t…

In 1992, Trump hosted the competition again. In early September that year, another group of contestants boarded the Spirit of New York, chartered for another Elite cruise. One of the girls on the boat was Shawna Lee, then a 14-year-old. She recalls how the contestants were

encouraged to parade downstairs and dance for Trump, Casablancas and others.

Another contestant, who was 15 at the time, also remembers being asked to walk for them. She says an org told her that if she refused she would be excluded from the competition
dailykos.com/stories/2017/8…

No such allegations have been leveled against Trump, who at the time was dating Marla Maple. But his close involvement in the contest raises questions for the president. Did he know that Casablancas and others were sleeping with contestants?
theguardian.com/us-news/2020/m…

Why would a man in his 40s, whose main business was real-estate development, want to host a beauty contest for teenage girls?

He even married a former Look of the Year contestant: @FLOTUS , narrowly missed out on a trip to NY in 1992, after coming second in the Slovenian heat.

cheatsheet.com/health-fitness…

It’s not clear how Casablancas first met Trump but, according to several former models who encountered him during the 1980s, the businessman became a regular at his parties.

With the opening of Trump Tower in 1983, and the acquisition of the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in 1985, Trump had gained the reputation of a high-flying playboy in his own right.

miamiherald.com/news/politics-…

Patty Owen recalls seeing Trump at Elite parties as far back as 1982. “Whenever I saw him, I was always like: why does John have to invite him?” Barbara Pilling recalls Trump asking how old she was. “I said 17 and he said, ‘That’s just great – you’re not too old, not too young.’”

Of course. He doesn't know anyone.

Trump now disputes being friends with Casablancas. Trump’s repsaid that he denies it “in the strongest possible terms”. “hardly knew him, spent very little time with him, and knew very little about him”.

gettyimages.com/detail/news-ph…

He did the same thing at the Miss Universe contests!

Some former contestants recall him being there as they got dressed for events. “Every time we changed, it was like Trump would find a reason to come backstage,” Wilkes says. A Canadian contestant from 1992 recalls similar

incidents. “He’d come by and say, ‘Hey girls, are we ready?’” she says. “I remember thinking, what have I got myself into?” Trump denies, “in the strongest possible terms”, behaving inappropriately with any Look of the Year contestants.

It also appears that Jeffrey Epstein had a Casablancas connection during the 1990s. According to a lawsuit filed in the US three months ago, in 1990 Casablancas sent a teenage model for her first “casting call” at a residential address on New York’s Upper East Side, to meet a

“photographer” who, it turned out, was Epstein. The lawsuit states that Epstein ordered the 15-year-old girl to undress before taking photographs of her, pushing her against a wall and sexually assaulting her.

George Houraney whose American Dream Calendar Girls beauty contest had been running in LV casinos since 1978, recalls encountering Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in Jan 1993. Houraney says that Trump asked him to organize
rawstory.com/2019/07/trump-…

a party that month with some of his pageant’s finalists, promising to invite heads of modelling agencies and prospective sponsors for his competition.

Trump discussed moving the American Dream competition from LV to one of Trump’s casinos.

“He wanted to build this into the biggest, the best thing that he could do. He was talking about television and pulling out all the contacts,” Eventually, the pageant was held at Trump Castle in Atlantic City in Nov 1993, but for one year only.

The partnership soured and ended

in two lawsuits, but for Trump it was a prelude to a series of more lucrative ventures in the beauty business.

theguardian.com/us-news/2016/j…

Trump acquired the Miss Universe Organization in a reported $10m deal that handed him control of three large, well-established pageants: Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA. Three years later, he founded Trump Model Management
@ericgarland
forbes.com/pictures/fehf4…

For Wolfgang Schwarz, a veteran model agent in Austria who worked closely with Casablancas, and met Trump at the Plaza in the early 90s, Trump’s decision to establish his own agency was about him wanting his own private source for models.

There are now at least 25 sexual misconduct allegations against the president, ranging from unwanted advances and harassment to serious sexual assaults. More than half relate to models or pageant contestants.

This America, is our President.
#VoteBlueNoMatterWho #PresidentBiden

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