A new allegation from former Miss Switzerland contestant Beatrice Keul has landed in a 53-page staff report released on Monday by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, eight days before Americans vote in the midterm elections: Keul now tells committee staff that President Donald Trump raped her in a suite at New York's Plaza Hotel in November 1993, during a pageant tied to Trump. The White House denies the allegation in full. The claim is unproven, it has not been independently verified, and Trump has not been charged with any crime in connection with it.
The report, released by Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee's ranking Democrat, is titled "'We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey': The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ's Desperate Efforts to Cover it Up." It examines accounts involving 11 women, five of whom, according to the report, directly accuse Trump of rape or sexual assault in Jeffrey Epstein's close company or presence. The Democrats conclude, based on the available evidence and witness testimony, that Trump and modeling agent Paolo Zampolli — who until recently served as a senior Trump administration official and diplomat — may have been co-conspirators in Epstein's conspiracy to traffic and abuse young women in the 1990s. The report also accuses the Justice Department of withholding Epstein-related files, and it calls for an independent special counsel to investigate. It is a minority staff report, not a court finding and not a criminal charge.
Keul, the report says, was 24 at the time, working as a model and in financial services in Switzerland. She was recruited by Jill Harth to take part in the Donald J. Trump American Dream Pageant, a competition for young women aged 16 to 22, held in Atlantic City and New York in November 1993. At a press luncheon at the Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time, Keul says Trump approached her and introduced himself, saying, "Finally we meet, Ms Keul." She says he promised to help her obtain a United States visa — through Zampolli — and to secure her admission to New York University, telling her repeatedly, "I will take care of you."
According to Keul's account, after Trump stepped away, Epstein approached her at once. She says he introduced himself as "Don's best friend," spent at least ten minutes talking with her while grinning toward Trump, who watched from across the room, and offered similar help: flights and accommodation, and an invitation to a party at Mar-a-Lago. "You know I can take care of you. We organize many parties with Don," Keul says Epstein told her.
Later that day, the report says, a Trump representative invited Keul upstairs at the Plaza Hotel to meet Trump. Believing the meeting could help her career and education, she went. She alleges that once inside the suite, Trump grabbed her from behind and forcibly raped her, tearing her dress and causing bleeding and bruising on multiple parts of her body. She described the alleged assault as "brutal." Keul says that afterwards, Trump sat her on the edge of the bed, repeated his offers to arrange a visa and university admission, and made her promise to remain silent, telling her, "The show must go on."
The report says Keul's passport had been taken from her on arrival, and that she finished the pageant in a terrified daze, fearing that asking for the passport back before the contest ended would signal that something was wrong. She returned to Switzerland, declined an invitation to another Trump-sponsored pageant in Hawaii several weeks later, and, the report says, declined again months later when Trump called her in Switzerland and renewed his offers of a visa and university admission. The report frames the pageant, in the Democrats' own words, as a "hunting ground" to prey on vulnerable young women and girls. Photographs included in the report show Keul and Trump together at the 1993 event; those photographs establish that they were together at the pageant — they do not by themselves prove the alleged assault.
The change in Keul's own account must be stated plainly. In late October 2024, days before that year's presidential election, Keul publicly described a different and lesser encounter: she said Trump jumped on her, kissed her, grabbed at her, and tried to lift her dress — and that she fought him off and it went no further. She did not allege a completed rape in 2024. The allegation of rape appears in the account she has now given to Democratic committee staff over several weeks of interviews, and she has also described a serious sexual assault to Swiss broadcaster SRF this month. The report presents the new account as consistent with other accusations against Trump; the fact of the change itself is on the record, and readers can weigh it.
The White House's denial, from spokeswoman Lauren Bis, is total and is quoted here in full: "None of these allegations are true. This 'report' is nothing more than a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans from the surging Republican momentum driven by President Trump's historic achievements. The President kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club at Mar-a-Lago because he was a creep, and he has been fully exonerated of anything related to Epstein."
What is not known matters as much as what is claimed. Keul's account has not been independently verified, and nothing in the report has been tested in court. No criminal charge has been filed against Trump over her allegation. Whether an independent special counsel is appointed is unknown, and the Democrats' claim that the Justice Department is withholding Epstein files is itself disputed by the administration. The report is a partisan document, written by the committee's minority staff; its conclusions are the Democrats' conclusions, and the president's denial stands beside them in full.
For ordinary voters, this is what the story really comes down to. Eight days before midterm voting, a grave charge has arrived in a congressional report written by one party's staff, built on an account that is more serious than the one its own author gave two years ago, and answered by a complete denial. Voters are being asked to weigh timing, source, and a changed story against a flat denial, with no court verdict anywhere in the picture. That is a hard judgment to make in the middle of an election week, and it is exactly why the honest position is the one stated at the top of this article: this is an allegation, not a finding, and the voters themselves, not a report, will decide how much weight it carries.
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