• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, October 13, 2016

America’s best-known celebrity and entertainment magazine is turning its guns on Donald Trump.

Less than a week after a recording surfaced of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women in 2005, People magazine published a first-person account by reporter Natasha Stoynoff, in which she accuses Trump of assaulting her at his estate in Mar-a-Lago in 2005.

Among the incendiary allegations leveled at Trump in the account, Stoynoff claims that when she visited Trump’s palatial Florida estate to write a feature on his first-year wedding anniversary with his wife Melania, the businessman and reality TV star pinned her against the wall and kissed her forcibly, just minutes after his pregnant wife left the room.

The episode ended when his butler came into the room to inform them that Melania was returning to continue the interview.

During another pause in the interview, when Melania left the room again, Trump leaned forward and said, “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?” with a promise to take her to a well-known New York City steakhouse. Once again, Trump dropped the advance as soon as his wife returned, according to Stoynoff.

In answer to the obvious question of why she didn’t do something, Stoynoff gives the equally obvious — and depressingly familiar — answer: “… like many women, I was ashamed and blamed myself for his transgression… I doubted my recollection and my reaction. I was afraid that a famous, powerful, wealthy man could and would discredit and destroy me…”

Along with a number of other accounts published by The New York Times, BuzzFeed, and other news organizations, Stoynoff’s allegations contradict Trump’s assertion that his comments in the 2005 recording were mere “locker-room talk,” meaning idle boasts with no basis in fact.

Indeed, People’s decision to air Stoynoff’s allegations may prove most damaging of all, given the magazine’s reputation for editorial integrity and enormous reach, especially among women — a crucial voting bloc courted by both political parties with messages about ending sexual violence as well as other issues relating to gender equality.

When asked for comment by People, Trump's campaign flatly denied the allegations.