Summer Zervos, right, listens to her attorney Gloria Allred during a news conference where she announced she has filed a defamation lawsuit against President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday in Los Angeles. (Mike Nelson/EPA) 
 
 A former contestant on the reality show “The Apprentice” filed a defamation lawsuit Tuesday against President-elect Donald Trump over his response to her allegations that he groped her during a job interview in 2007. 
 
 Summer Zervos, a California restaurant owner who appeared on the show in 2006, accused Trump of aggressively kissing and grabbing her when she went to his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel to discuss a possible job at the Trump Organization a year later. 
 
 In her suit, Zervos alleges that Trump defamed her when he denied her account of their interactions in the hotel room, accusing her and other women who made similar accusations of lying and fabricating their accounts. Zervos said she would drop her lawsuit, which was filed in New York, without seeking monetary damages if Trump would retract his claim that she lied and acknowledge his actions. 
 
 [Read Summer Zervos’s legal complaint] 
 
 Zervos appeared at a Los Angeles news conference alongside her lawyer, Gloria Allred, who said Zervos took and passed a lie- 
 
 detector test before filing her suit. 
 
 (Reuters) 
 
 “Enough is enough,” Allred said. “Truth matters. Women matter. Those who allege they were victims of sexual misconduct or sexual assault by Mr. Trump matter.” Allred said that as the lawsuit proceeds, she would seek to depose Trump under oath and could also seek to subpoena recordings Trump made during tapings of “The Apprentice.” 
 
 Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks responded in a statement: “More of the same from Gloria Allred. There is no truth to this absurd story.” 
 
 Eleven women spoke publicly before the election, accusing Trump of inappropriately touching or kissing them. They stepped forward after Trump denied ever touching a woman without her consent during a presidential debate in October. 
 
 “Have you ever done those things?” Trump was asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, regarding comments Trump made during a taping of “Access Hollywood” in 2005, when he bragged about groping and kissing women without their prior permission. “I will tell you: No, I have not,” Trump responded. 
 
 During the campaign, Trump asserted that each of his accusers was lying and vowed to sue the women for making the claims. 
 
 “Total fabrication,” he said during a campaign rally in Gettysburg, Pa., in October. “The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.” 
 
 Without evidence, he said the women were coordinating with the campaign of his rival, Hillary Clinton. He also mocked some of the women, suggesting they were not attractive enough for him to sexually harass. 
 
 Summer Zervos listens as her attorney Gloria Allred speaks during a news conference announcing the filing of a lawsuit against President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday in Los Angeles. (Mike Blake/Reuters) 
 
 [Here are the women who accused Donald Trump of inappropriate touching] 
 
 “Look at her, and look at her words. And you tell me what you think. I don’t think so,” Trump said at a rally about one of his accusers, a People Magazine reporter who said Trump shoved her against a wall and forcibly kissed her while she was at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate on assignment in 2005. 
 
 Trump has not yet filed suit against any of the women. 
 
 The Supreme Court has ruled that presidents can be sued while in office over their private conduct or activities before their election. The ruling came after President Bill Clinton sought to have a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Arkansas state worker Paula Jones delayed until after he left office. 
 
 The Clinton case shows the potential peril of such suits for a sitting president. Clinton ultimately settled with Jones, but allegations that he had lied under oath during a deposition in the matter about his relations with intern Monica Lewinsky led to his impeachment. 
 
 Trump has already settled other lawsuits to ensure they do not linger into his presidency. In November, he agreed to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits accusing his defunct real estate seminar program Trump University of fraud. He did not admit fault. 
 
 In her suit, Zervos asserted that she had gone to the Los Angeles hotel to discuss a possible job with Trump after he had been complimentary of her performance on the television show. In the room, she alleged that Trump kissed her aggressively and groped her breast. As she attempted to reject his advances, she said Trump steered her toward the bedroom, saying, “let’s lay down and watch some telly telly.” 
 
 “Come on man, get real,” she replied, according to the suit. Trump then “repeated her words back to her lasciviously, drawing out the second word and saying, ‘get reeeeal,’ as he began to press his genitals against her, trying to kiss her again,” the suit alleges. 
 
 Immediately after leaving Trump, Zervos told her father about the encounter, according to the suit. 
 
 Zervos said she excused Trump’s behavior for years, particularly because she was ultimately offered a job at the Trump Organization, but she had been compelled to step forward after hearing the presidential candidate brag to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush about behaving similarly with other women. 
 
 According to the suit, the tape convinced Zervos that Trump was “a sexual predator who had preyed on her and other women.” She claimed his dismissal of her as a “phony” and her account as a “hoax” had resulted in lost business for her restaurant and emotional distress. 
 
 Zervos is one of four of Trump’s accusers represented by Allred, who also represents more than two dozen women who have accused comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault. 
 
 In the suit, Zervos alleges that Trump knew his statements were defamatory, not just because he knew the truth of their interactions but also because he knew “he engaged regularly in this kind of unwanted sexual touching for years, and that was, in fact, how he treated women routinely and how he lived his life.” 
 
 If the case is allowed to proceed, the claim could allow Allred to explore other allegations made by women against Trump. ||||| Just days before he's set to be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump has been hit with a defamation lawsuit from a former Apprentice contestant who says he engaged in sexually inappropriate contact with her. 
 
 Shortly before Election Day, Trump faced a barrage of sexual assault accusations from many women following the release of a bombshell video showing him boasting to Access Hollywood's Billy Bush about grabbing women's genitals. Sumner Zervos, who appeared on season five of The Apprentice, was one of the accusers. At that time, Trump responded at a rally in Pennsylvania, "All of these liars will be sued after the election is over." 
 
 Trump never sued. But Zervos hasn't let go. 
 
 On Tuesday, she appeared alongside her attorney Gloria Allred at a press conference to announce the suit, filed in New York. 
 
 Allred told The Hollywood Reporter in December that, even if Trump didn't follow up on his threat to sue his accusers for defamation, one of her clients might strike first. 
 
 Zervos accuses Trump of kissing her twice in 2007 and attacking her in a hotel room. According to her complaint, she confided in family and friends at the time. She alleges that Trump took an interest in mentoring her, and as a result, she "decided that Mr. Trump's behavior had either been an isolated set of incidents, or perhaps that he had even regretted the behavior. She continued to look up to him for his success as a businessman, and spoke highly of him after he announced his candidacy." 
 
 But that changed upon the revelation of the Access Hollywood tapes and the Oct. 9, 2016, debate where she alleges in the complaint, "Mr. Trump told the world a boldface lie: he stated in response to a direct question from Anderson Cooper that [he] had not ever done any of the things that he had bragged about to Billy Bush." 
 
 The complaint zeroes in on Trump's initial statement upon Zervos' allegation that he "never met [Ms. Zervos] at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately," along with tweets how his accuser "made up events THAT NEVER HAPPENED." She also points to comments of "100% fabricated and made-up charges," "totally false," and so forth, including, "Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign." 
 
 "In doing so, he used his national and international bully pulpit to make false factual statements to denigrate and verbally attack Ms. Zervos and the other women who publicly reported his sexual assaults in October 2016," states the complaint (read here). "Mr. Trump knew that his false, disparaging statements would be heard and read by people around the world, and that these women, including Summer Zervos, would be subjected to threats of violence, economic harm, and reputational damage. In his effort to win the Presidency and counter the damage to his election prospects caused by his own recorded words with Billy Bush, Mr. Trump knowingly, intentionally and maliciously threw each and every one of these women under the bus, with conscious disregard of the impact that repeatedly calling them liars would have upon their lives and reputations." 
 
 Zervos likely wouldn't be able to prevail in a lawsuit for sexual assault thanks to the statute of limitations. Instead, she's echoing the legal strategy by many of Bill Cosby's accusers by suing over comments that allegedly branded her a liar. To win, she will have to show that Trump's statements were "of and concerning" her. Zervos also will need to beat back a defense likely to come from the president-elect — that his statement represented opinion. As shown in the Cosby cases, courts throughout the nation have come to different judgments about whether denials of sexual assault charges are capable of defamatory meaning. 
 
 Just last week, the president-elect beat a libel lawsuit filed against him by political strategist Cheryl Jacobus. She sued for defamation after Trump tweeted that she begged him for a job and he turned her down. The judge there ruled that Trump's statements qualified as opinions. Right before the holidays, the president-elect cleared another legal mess from his plate and agreed to a $25 million settlement to resolve the Trump University fraud lawsuits. 
 
 Suing a sitting president is logistically complicated, and courts often are deferential to their schedules, but Zervos will take some hope from the Supreme Court's 1996 ruling in Paula Jones' sexual harassment case against Bill Clinton. There, Justice John Paul Stevens decided that the U.S. Constitution doesn't protect the president from the burdens of private litigation. Instead, it's possible that Trump may have to give a deposition that explores his history with women, although his attorneys will surely attempt to limit the scope of questioning. 
 
 Zervos is seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages, plus an order that he retract defamatory statements and apologize. 
 
 Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks issued a statement Tuesday afternoon in response to the suit: “More of the same from Gloria Allred. There is no truth to this absurd story.” 
 
 Jan. 17, 2:55 p.m. Updated with a statement from Trump's representative. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Daniella Silva 
 
 A woman who previously accused Donald Trump of unwanted sexual advances has filed a defamation lawsuit against the president elect — just three days before Trump’s presidential inauguration. 
 
 Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the “The Apprentice,” said in a press conference with attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles on Tuesday that she filed the lawsuit over allegedly false statements Trump made in response to her accusation. 
 
 Summer Zervos listens as her attorney Gloria Allred speaks during a news conference announcing the filing of a lawsuit against President-elect Donald Trump in Los Angeles, Calif., on Jan. 17, 2017. Mike Blake / Reuters 
 
 The suit, filed Tuesday morning, claims Trump knew his statements about Zervos and his other accusers would subject them to “threats of violence, economic harm and reputational damage.” 
 
 Allred said Zervos would be willing to dismiss the lawsuit without any monetary damages if Trump agreed to retract his comments about her and admit that the accusations against him were in fact true. 
 
 “Ms. Zervos is willing to dismiss her lawsuit if he will retract his false statements about her and acknowledge that what Summer said about Mr. Trump and his alleged conduct is and was the truth,” she said. 
 
 Related: The Allegations Women Have Made Against Donald Trump 
 
 Zervos claimed in an October press conference that Trump sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions during a 2007 business meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel. 
 
 She said Trump made unwanted sexual advances toward her on multiple occasions during the meeting, kissing her on the lips, pressing himself against her and groping her breast and body without her consent. 
 
 Trump has vehemently denied the claims. In response to Tuesday's press conference, Trump's spokeswoman Hope Hicks provided the following statement to NBC News: "More of the same from Gloria Allred. There is no truth to this absurd story." 
 
 On the campaign trail, Trump said Zervos and his other accusers were liars, according to the lawsuit, and that she and the other women were motivated to come forward by the promise of “ten minutes of fame.” 
 
 “In doing so, he used his national and international bully pulpit to make false factual statements to denigrate and verbally attack Ms. Zervos and the other women who publicly reported his sexual assaults in October 2016,” the lawsuit said. 
 
 Allred said at the press conference on Tuesday that Zervos told friends and family about the incident at the time, but did not go public at the time because she decided her behavior had either been “an aberration or a test” or that Trump felt guilty about his behavior. 
 
 That all changed in the wake of the October release of a leaked video from 2005, where Trump bragged about kissing and groping women without their consent. After the video and Trump’s statements during the Oct. 9th presidential debate in which he denied he had ever done any of the things he bragged about, Zervos decided to take action, according to the lawsuit. 
 
 Related: Ex-’Apprentice’ Contestant Summer Zervos Says Trump Made Unwanted Sexual Advances 
 
 “For the first time, Summer Zervos saw Mr. Trump’s behavior towards her for what it was: that of a sexual predator who had preyed on her and other women,” the lawsuit says. 
 
 Following Zervos’ allegations, Trump released a statement from a man claiming to be her cousin which refuted her claims. But Zervos fought back with another press conference in which a social worker and friend of Zervos said the former “Apprentice” contestant told her about the claims more than five years ago. 
 
 Prior to the release of the tape, a handful of women have accused Trump of sexual harassment or assault for decades, including in court filings. The number of women has seen since grown in the wake of the tape’s release. 
 
 The video prompted a firestorm of controversy during the 2016 presidential campaign and an outcry from women’s rights groups. 
 
 Trump has since denied that he engaged in the behavior described in the tape and has said all of the accusations against him are false. 
 
 Zervos' suit also alleges emotional distress and is seeking financial damages.
– During the election, eleven women accused Donald Trump of inappropriate touching or kissing, the Washington Post reports. Now one of them has sued him. According to NBC News, Summer Zervos filed a defamation lawsuit against the president-elect on Tuesday. Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice, claims Trump kissed her on the lips, pressed himself against her, and groped her breast without her permission during a 2007 meeting about a job with the Trump Organization. In response to the accusations, Trump called Zervos and the other women liars in search of their "ten minutes of fame." "All of these liars will be sued after the election is over," the Hollywood Reporter quotes Trump as saying during a rally in the fall. Now Zervos' lawyer, Gloria Allred, says Trump knew his comments would open the women up to "threats of violence, economic harm, and reputational damage." She's seeking to depose Trump under oath and seek recordings made during filming of The Apprentice. However, Allred says Zervos will dismiss her defamation suit if Trump admits her accusations about him are true. "Truth matters," the Post quotes Allred as saying. "Women matter." Allred says Zervos told her family and friends about the alleged assault when it happened and has passed a lie-detector test. Zervos says she decided to come forward after Trump was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women's genitals. Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks calls the allegations "absurd."