Summer Zervos, Trump Accuser, Subpoenas ‘The Apprentice’ Recordings

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Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice” who accused President Trump of sexual assault, is seeking records to prove that he defamed her by calling her a liar.

A lawyer for Ms. Zervos, who is suing Mr. Trump for defamation in New York, said on Wednesday that subpoenas had been issued both to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns archives of the reality show, and to the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Ms. Zervos says he groped her in 2007.

“We’re gathering evidence that we believe will prove that the defendant lied when he falsely denigrated Ms. Zervos and when he denied sexually assaulting her,” said the lawyer, Mariann Wang of Cuti Hecker Wang.

Ms. Zervos, a Republican, was among the more than 10 women who came forward during the 2016 presidential campaign to accuse Mr. Trump of inappropriate sexual contact. He denied all of their claims.

Ms. Zervos publicly revealed her account during an emotional news conference just weeks before the November election, accusing Mr. Trump of forcibly kissing her at meetings in New York and California as she sought his mentorship after her run on “The Apprentice,” in which contestants vied to work for Mr. Trump. During one encounter at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007, she said, Mr. Trump made repeated advances and grabbed her breasts.

“You do not have the right to treat women as sexual objects just because you are a star,” she said at the news conference, borrowing a phrase he used in the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which he could be heard making vulgar comments about women. After that recording was leaked late in the campaign, many speculated that recordings from “The Apprentice” would show the same.

In the subpoena issued Wednesday, Ms. Wang asked M.G.M. to turn over all documents, video or audio that feature Ms. Zervos or Mr. Trump talking about Ms. Zervos. The subpoena also seeks any recording in which Mr. Trump speaks of women “in any sexual or inappropriate manner.”

The hotel subpoena seeks records of any stay by Mr. Trump from 2005 through 2009 as well as documents related to his longtime bodyguard, Keith Schiller; his longtime assistant, Rhona Graff; or Ms. Zervos.

Ms. Zervos first filed the lawsuit early last year after Mr. Trump denied her account and accused her of lying. Neither M.G.M. nor the hotel immediately responded to requests for comment.

In March, a New York State judge ruled that Ms. Zervos’s defamation suit could proceed over the objections of the president’s lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, who had argued that the New York State Supreme Court, where the case was filed, lacked jurisdiction over a sitting president under the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution.

“No one is above the law,” Justice Jennifer Schecter of State Supreme Court in Manhattan wrote in the decision. “It is settled that the president of the United States has no immunity and is ‘subject to the laws’ for purely private acts.”

Mr. Trump’s team has since appealed for a stay in the case.

On Monday, another woman, the pornographic film actress Stephanie Clifford, filed a separate defamation suit against Mr. Trump, with whom she says she had a consensual affair.

Ms. Clifford, known by the stage name Stormy Daniels, said Mr. Trump defamed her when he suggested that she had concocted a story about being threatened by a man in 2011 who told her to “leave Trump alone” after she sold her story of the affair to a publisher.

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