Man Arrested for Groping Woman Told Authorities: ‘Trump Says It’s OK’

A man who was arrested for groping a female passenger while on a flight reportedly told the officials who arrested him that “the president of the United States says it’s OK to grab women by their private parts.”

ABC News reported that they had seen court documents in which Bruce Michael Alexander was accused of twice illegally touching the breasts of female passenger. The alleged victim was sitting in a seat in front of Alexander while they were both on a flight from Houston to Albuquerque on Sunday.

‘Man accused of groping woman: Trump “says it’s OK to grab women by their private parts”‘

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According to the official report reviewed by the news agency the woman told law enforcement officials that she didn’t say anything after she was touched the first time because she thought it might have been an accident. However, she then said that she knew after the second time it happened that it was not an accident, and Alexander was intentionally groping her.

Alexander allegedly began touching the unnamed woman in a sexually suggestive manner after she dozed off during the flight. After being touched a second time, according to court documents, “she rose from her seat, turned around and told the passenger behind her that she didn’t know why he thought it was OK to touch her, and he needed to stop doing it.”

After confronting Alexander the woman was moved to another seat by personnel of the airline.

Immediately after the plane arrived at its destination Alexander was arrested. A key factor in the arrest is that his hands matched the description provided by the female victim. According to the police report, she said that the man who groped her had “thick fingers, they were hairy and he had dirty fingernails.”

According to the arresting documents, Alexander told the law enforcement officers who put him in handcuffs that “the president of the United States says it’s OK to grab women by their private parts.”

The 49-year-old Alexander has reportedly been charged with abusive sexual contact and has a preliminary court hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

This incident is not surprising. Back in October of 2016 we published an article entitled “Last Night, Donald Trump Claimed Grabbing a Woman’s Genitals is Not Sexual Assault.”

In this article we printed the interview Trump gave to Anderson Cooper on CNN after the Access Hollywood tape was released.

In that interviewer Cooper said to Trump:

“We received a lot of questions online, Mr. Trump about the tape that was released on Friday, as you can imagine. You called what you said ‘locker room banter’. You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals. That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?”

And Trump responded by saying “No.”

So even before he was elected president, Donald Trump made clear that he thinks it’s OK for men to grab and grope women. Just as with violent outbursts and attacks on reporters, Trump’s followers are taking their cue from our president as to what is acceptable behavior. And now we even have a Supreme Court Justice appointed by Trump who has also been accused of sexual assault.

The good news is that the man who modeled his behavior after Trump has been charged with a crime and may be going to jail. Which is where the president should be, and hopefully will be, after he is charged and convicted of his many crimes.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.