Two women accuse Trump of sexual assault

Two women have accused the US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of inappropriately touching them in the past, according to a report published on The New York Times website on Wednesday. Trump has denied the allegations.

When asked if he had kissed women without permission or grabbed their genitals, he said, "No... I have not."

The Trump campaign denied the claims in The New York Times report and called it "character assassination."

Former businesswoman Jessica Leeds, 74, who worked for a paper company, told The New York Times that Trump groped her on a flight more than three decades ago as they sat next to each other in first class.

About 45 minutes after takeoff, the armrest "somehow disappeared" and Trump began grabbing her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt, Leeds said.

"It was an assault," she said, describing the encounter that occurred when she was 38.

Rachel Crooks said she was a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate company in Trump Tower in 2005 when she encountered Trump outside an elevator in the building one morning.

She said she introduced herself and shook his hand, but he would not let go. Trump began kissing her cheeks and then "kissed me directly on the mouth."

Neither woman reported the incidents to law enforcement.

The New York Times spoke with friends and family of the two women, who corroborated their accounts and knew of the incidents before the "hot mic" video was released last week.

The Trump campaign called the article a political attack.

"This entire article is fiction, and for the New York Times to launch a completely false, coordinated character assassination against Mr. Trump on a topic like this is dangerous," senior communicators advisor Jason Miller said in a statement.

"To reach back decades in an attempt to smear Mr. Trump trivialises sexual assault, and it sets a new low for where the media is willing to go in its efforts to determine this election."

The Times said Trump was highly agitated when questioned about the women's claims, denying them and saying "none of this ever took place."

The paper said he threatened to sue the news organisation if the report was published.

The report follows the release of a video from 2005, last Friday, in which Trump was caught on a "hot mic" bragging about groping women.

He apologised for the comments, dismissing it as "locker room" talk, but the issue came up on Sunday's presidential debate where he claimed he had never assaulted women.

As the news of the sexual assault claims spread, several more women came forward with the allegations that Trump had forcibly groped them or kissed them.

Some people took to twitter expressing their opinions on the issue with the hashtags LikeAnOctopus and HisHandsWereAllOverMe.