Swiss Journalist Tells SRF Beatrice Keul Confided Her Trump Allegation to Him Years Before She Went Public

Beatrice Keul confided in a journalist friend years before she went public in 2024. He has now confirmed her story to Swiss broadcaster SRF. Keul, a former Miss Switzerland finalist aged 56, accuses Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in a New York hotel suite in 1993.

Her story reaches the top of US politics. On 26 October, Democrats in Congress published her fuller account, which alleges for the first time that Trump raped her. The White House calls the report false, and Trump's campaign denied her story in 2024.

What the Journalist Confirmed

SRF did not name the journalist or say exactly what Keul told him, reporting only that he backed her account. She first went public in autumn 2024, in an interview with the Daily Mail shortly before the presidential election. She later gave interviews to the Swiss tabloid Blick and news outlets in Biel. In those interviews, she said she had talked Trump out of it when he tried to rape her, the report notes.

Speaking to The New York Times in 2025, Keul said she was holding back some details because she had received anonymous threats. The Democrats' report says its account rests on several weeks of interviews between committee staff and Keul. She had not made those details public before. Keul told SRF that the report had set off a flood of media requests, adding: 'I am neutral and have no political interests.'

What the Democrats' Report Says

Jamie Raskin, the Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat, released the 53-page report. It examines Trump's links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Five of the 11 women it cites, including Keul, accuse Trump of rape or sexual assault. Keul was 24, it says, when the organiser, Jill Harth, recruited her for Trump's American Dream Pageant in November 1993. She says Trump promised her a US visa and a New York University place, and Epstein introduced himself as Trump's best friend.

Later, she says, a Trump representative took her to a suite at the Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned. Once she was inside, the report alleges, Trump grabbed her from behind and raped her. Keul called the assault 'brutal'. The committee's Democratic staff wrote the document alone, and the full committee has not formally adopted it. No court has ever examined the allegation, and prosecutors have never charged Trump over it.

How the White House Responded

Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, said 'none of these allegations are true'. She called the report a desperate attempt by Democrats to distract Americans from Republican momentum, and insisted that Trump had done nothing wrong over Epstein. Americans vote in the midterm elections on 3 November, a week after the report's release.

Harth sued Trump for sexual assault in 1997 but dropped the case after settling a separate business dispute with him; Trump denied her claims. Keul is now working on possible class actions with women who accuse Trump or Epstein of abuse, a group called the Survivor Sisters. Speaking to Swiss broadcaster RTS, she called Trump's pageant 'a hunting ground for Trump and Epstein'.