Beatrice Keul, a Swiss former model and Miss Switzerland contestant, alleges that Donald Trump raped her in a suite at New York’s Plaza Hotel in November 1993, when she was 24. Her account appears in a staff report that Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released on Monday, Oct. 26.
The White House says “none of these allegations are true.” Trump has not been charged in connection with her account, and no court has examined it. The report came out eight days before the Nov. 3 midterms.
What Beatrice Keul alleges in the report
The 53-page report 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.” Committee Democrats, led by ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland, published it as a PDF. It is a minority staff product, not a finding of the full committee.
According to the report, Keul attended the Donald J. Trump American Dream Pageant in November 1993. At a press luncheon at the Plaza, then owned by Trump, she says Trump promised to arrange a US visa for her and to help her get into New York University.
She told committee staff that Jeffrey Epstein then approached her and said, “I’m Jeffrey, Don’s best friend.” She says he invited her to a party at Mar-a-Lago and offered to cover her travel.
Later that day, according to her account, a Trump representative took her upstairs to a suite, where she alleges Trump raped her. She described the assault as “brutal,” the report says. She says Trump afterward repeated his promises and told her to keep quiet.
She also says he phoned her in Switzerland months later to renew the offers, and she declined.
A footnote sets out the sourcing: “This section relies solely on extensive discussions between Committee Staff and Keul over a period of several weeks.” The report includes photos Keul provided of herself with Trump at the event.
How her account has changed since 2024
Keul has told versions of this story before, and the earlier versions stop short of rape. In October 2024, she told the Daily Mail that Trump kissed and groped her in the suite and tried to lift her dress, and that she got him to stop.
“He kissed me on the lips and on the neck. He tried to lift my dress,” she said, as quoted by The New Republic. The Trump campaign denied her account at the time, the outlet reported.
In December 2025, she gave a similar account to The New York Times. “I yelled, I screamed, I pushed him,” she told the paper. The Times reported that she was withholding some details because of anonymous threats.
A friend, Pascal Claivaz, told the Times that Keul described the Plaza episode to him around 2004. The Times also quoted her account of meeting Epstein, with slightly different wording: “I’m Jeffrey. I’m Don’s best friend.”
The new report says she had previously chosen to say that she talked “Trump down.” It does not say more about why her account changed, HuffPost noted. On Monday, she confirmed to the Swiss paper Blick that she is now making the rape allegation publicly.
What the report offers as corroboration
The Democrats’ press release says the report includes “corroborating evidence from others present at the pageant.” In the report, that evidence concerns the setting rather than the alleged assault itself. It cites a Czech contestant whom Keul met there and a 1997 lawsuit by pageant organiser Jill Harth, which alleged Trump sought access to a young Czech contestant at the same event.
The report also argues that the NYU promise matches what other women have told the committee about Epstein’s methods. These are the staff’s arguments. TIME reported that it could not independently verify Keul’s account, and we have not verified it either.
Keul is one of 11 women the report discusses. It says five of them, including Keul and former model Stacey Williams, have directly accused Trump of rape or sexual assault in Epstein’s company or presence. Trump has denied those earlier accusations.
How the White House and Justice Department responded
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in statements to several outlets that “none of these allegations are true.” She called the report “nothing more than a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans from the surging Republican momentum driven by President Trump’s historic achievements,” according to HuffPost and People.
She added that Trump “kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club at Mar-a-Lago because he was a creep,” NBC News reported. She also said he “has been fully exonerated of anything related to Epstein,” according to TIME.
A Justice Department spokesperson told NBC News the report is “nothing more than a last-ditch effort by House Judiciary Democrats to mislead the public.” We found no comment from Trump himself on Keul’s account in coverage through Tuesday. Trump has long said he knew nothing of Epstein’s crimes.
Where the Epstein case and the report go from here
Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to state prostitution charges, including procuring a minor. He died in a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. Ghislaine Maxwell is the only other person convicted in the case, TIME noted. We have covered earlier court fights over the Epstein grand jury records.
Raskin’s statement says “an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators and DOJ’s cover-up.” Democrats are in the minority, so they cannot issue subpoenas or call hearings on their own. That changes only if they win the House majority on Nov. 3, one of the key House races to watch this cycle.
If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline is free and confidential: call 800-656-HOPE (4673) or chat at rainn.org.
