Trump snared by sexual assault scandal. Again.

In early October, back when everyone “knew” that Hillary Clinton would win the US election, a tape surfaced of Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women. You may have forgotten this Trump scandal in the flood of other Trump scandals that have hit since his victory (evidence that Russia hacked e-mails to throw the election, Trump refusing to acknowledge that Russia hacked e-mails to throw the election, Trump failing to condemn Russia for for hacking e-mails to throw the election, a dossier full of salacious rumours about why Trump might be reluctant to condemn Russia for hacking e-mails to throw the election, etc. etc.), but it was a pretty big deal at the time. Trump dismissed the video as “locker room” talk, and repeatedly denied ever doing the things he admits to doing in the tape. In the second debate, Trump was asked explicitly if he had ever groped women. “No, I have not” was his answer.

Immediately, women began to come forward with a slightly different recollection of Donald Trump’s past. A businesswoman groped on a plane, a writer forcibly kissed at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, contestants from his beauty pageants disturbed by Trump barging into the dressing rooms to watch them getting naked – the allegations kept coming. By election day, there were over twenty different accounts of sexual harassment or assault, some against minors, hanging over candidate Trump’s head.

Then he won the election, and the narrative changed. This wasn’t a violent and out-of-control chauvinist – he was a man of the people, with a direct line to the disenfranchised white working class, ready to fix America. And so the reports of misogyny and entitlement died away. Until now.

Wait, you didn’t think those sexual assault allegations were just going to disappear, did you? You didn’t think every single one of the twenty-plus women who were brave enough to come forward before the election would shrug their shoulders and go hide while their alleged attacker walked into the White House?

Summer Zervos was a contestant on The Apprentice in 2005. When the “Grab ‘em by the pussy” tape aired and Trump began making denials, Zervos was one of the first women to come forward. In a press conference, she alleged that Trump had forcibly kissed her and pressed his genitals against her in a Beverly Hills hotel. Trump’s campaign team hit back hours later, denying everything, while Trump tweeted that such accusations were “phoney”, “100% false”, and manufactured to get fame and attention.

Now Zervos is suing the president elect. Not for sexual assault, although she could do – California law includes “unwanted touching for the purpose of sexual gratification” as a crime, with a statute of limitations of ten years. But instead, Zervos has chosen to sue for defamation, arguing that Trump defamed her reputation by publicly calling her liar back in October. The lawsuit calls the president elect (who is due to be sworn in on Friday) a “sexual predator” who knew his Twitter attacks on Zervos and the other accusers would subject them to “threats of violence, economic harm and reputational damage.”

You might think that what Zervos alleges happened (unwanted kissing and sexual touching) doesn’t count as a crime, despite the Californian statute, but the genius of her lawsuit is that it doesn’t matter. Trump is now facing the very treatment he has threatened and inflicted on numerous adversaries in the past, through the medium he himself advocated by calling for stronger libel laws to curb press freedom last year. Nor can he just settle this one into oblivion, as he did with the Trump University fraud case, settled for $25 million in November to avoid embarrassment. Zervos has said she will drop the suit without monetary damages if Trump retracts his statements and admits the allegations are true – something the president elect clearly has no intention of doing.

Of course, Zervos’ lawsuit has little chance of success, not with the full force of Trump’s infamous legal team. But again, that’s not the point. If it goes to court, it will dog the new president’s first year in office at every turn. We may also finally get to see the secret footage that supposedly shows Trump on the set of The Apprentice behaving in an entirely un-presidential manner. Will it be enough to sink his presidency? Probably not – Trump has always seemed untouchable, and his performance at last week’s long-awaited press conference showed he can still run rings around the media, Russian prostitutes or no Russian prostitutes. But slowly, these scandals are already chipping away at his administration. They’re detracting attention from the “big beautiful jobs plan” he wants to focus on and reminding Americans every day that their soon-to-be president is a reckless egomaniac who can’t keep his hands to himself or his mind on topic for more than ten seconds.

And if Summer Zervos fails, there are at least nineteen other women ready to take her place.