Two More Accusations Against Gore Surface

[Trigger warning for description of sexual assault.]

The National Enquirer is reporting that they have unearthed allegations of sexual assault from two other massage therapists:

The first incident allegedly took place at a Beverly Hills
luxury hotel when Gore, 62, was in Hollywood to attend the Oscars in 2007.

The second reportedly occurred a year later at a hotel in Tokyo.

A Beverly Hills hotel source told The ENQUIRER: "The therapist claimed that when they were alone, Gore shrugged off a towel and stood naked in front of her. He pointed at his erect penis and ordered her, 'Take care of THIS.'"

As Jaclyn notes, the Enquirer says the story is "on newsstands now," but their current issue doesn't feature the story. So no more information is available, I presume until the new issue arrives in stores.

Almost certainly, the veracity of the new allegations will be questioned on the basis that they're only being made now, reviving that fun old seeking-fame-by-making-rape-allegations chestnut. But, a couple of points: Delayed reporting of sexual assault does not correlate with the veracity of the allegation, particularly when there is a strong disincentive (such as the perpetrator being a famous and/or powerful man) from reporting at all.

Also, the Enquirer, in its lurid, breathless style—which is seriously distressing when reading about sexual assault allegations—opens its piece with:

The ENQUIRER reports in an exclusive bombshell exclusive that police have investigated charges from TWO MORE WOMEN who claimed they were abused by former VP AL GORE!

That suggests to me that the allegations were not made recently, but discovered recently and are thus only being made widely public now.

After the first allegation was made public, the story got about 1 minute of coverage approximately 15 minutes in the broadcast of the evening news on the local (Chicago) NBC affiliate, which was fairly typical of the media coverage generally. I will be interested to see if the story is pursued with more vigor now, or if the media will, inexplicably, continue to behave as if they believe Gore, a man they've framed as a "serial exaggerator" and "liar" for more than a decade, is suddenly being truthful about this.