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President George HW Bush speaks at the White House in 1992, the year he is alleged to have groped a Michigan woman.
President George HW Bush speaks at the White House in 1992, the year he is alleged to have groped a Michigan woman. Photograph: Ron Edmonds/AP
President George HW Bush speaks at the White House in 1992, the year he is alleged to have groped a Michigan woman. Photograph: Ron Edmonds/AP

George HW Bush accused of groping woman while president

This article is more than 6 years old
  • Michigan woman tells CNN Bush squeezed her buttocks at event in 1992
  • Bush, 93, has faced several similar allegations but all after he left office

George HW Bush was accused of groping a woman while president on Thursday, following multiple allegations he had groped women after he left office.

A Michigan woman told CNN that the 41st president squeezed her buttocks while she posed for a picture with him at a campaign fundraiser in 1992. The woman, who was not identified by CNN, said she attended the event with her father and “we got closer together for a family photo and it was like ‘Holy crap!’” she said of Bush’s grope.

Bush, 93, has faced several allegations of groping women during photos in recent weeks but all of the previous allegations took place long after Bush had left office.

The latest accuser, whose ex-husband and best friend spoke to CNN about the incident, said the spate of allegations made against Bush convinced her to come forward.

“All the focus has been on ‘He’s old.’ OK, but he wasn’t old when it happened to me,” she said. “I’ve been debating what to do about it.”

She is at least the sixth woman to allege Bush groped her.

One accuser, actor Joanna Grolnick, described to Deadspin her encounter with Bush. “We all circled around him and [former first lady] Barbara for a photo, and I was right next to him,” she told the website. “He reached his right hand around to my behind, and as we smiled for the photo he asked the group, ‘Do you want to know who my favorite magician is?’ As I felt his hand dig into my flesh, he said, ‘David Cop-a-Feel!’”

Jim McGrath, a spokesman for Bush, did not respond to a request for comment about the newest allegation.

In response to the groping allegations from the last few years, McGrath last month issued an apology on behalf of Bush.

“At age 93, President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures,” McGrath said in a statement. “To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke – and on occasion, he has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner. Some have seen it as innocent; others clearly view it as inappropriate. To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most sincerely.”

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