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@LegitMillennial claims in a tweet that went viral:

I found a graphic I think Fox News might've missed.

Sexual assault by powerful white males

The image reads:

Number of times each have been accused of sexual assault/harassment

Is the data presented in the image accurate?

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  • 10
    I'm not sure that this is an investigate-able claim. "Barack Obama raped my aunt." There, now Obama has one -- even though neither of my parents had a sister. Is there a standard for a "valid" accusation, given that 0 of the claims were tested in court?
    – Michael Lorton
    May 2, 2017 at 1:46
  • 4
    And as expected, there was a reply on Twitter mentioning Bill Clinton.
    – Andrew Grimm
    May 2, 2017 at 10:13
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    Technically Obama has been accused a couple of times. And not just by Malvolio. Not credibly accused but accused. secretsofthefed.com/…
    – Murphy
    May 2, 2017 at 10:43
  • 4
    @Malvolio - the accusations against O'Reilly, Trump, Ailes are formal, on the record, accusations. If Fox News and/or Trump pay millions and millions to get it out of court, that's not exactly "not tested." Thrown out of court? I'd be with you if that was the case.
    – PoloHoleSet
    May 2, 2017 at 15:23
  • 7
    @MohammadSakibArifin There are also millions of people on twitter who just don't like the democrats. Not everything is a Russian conspiracy.
    – eyeballfrog
    May 2, 2017 at 16:16

1 Answer 1

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Yes those numbers appear to be largely correct if you only consider accusations that have lead to a law suit or have been widely reported by news media.

Donald Trump: at least 15

Wikipedia has a list of the accusers of Donald Trump:

  1. Ivana Trump
  2. Jill Harth
  3. Jessica Leeds
  4. Kristin Anderson
  5. Cathy Heller
  6. Temple Taggart McDowell
  7. Karena Virginia
  8. Mindy McGillivray
  9. Rachel Crooks
  10. Natasha Stoynoff
  11. Jessica Drake
  12. Ninni Laaksonen
  13. Summer Zervos
  14. Burnett's unnamed friend
  15. Cassandra Searles.

In addition, there has been accusations that he has entered the dressing room of a number of pageants.

Bill O'Reilly: at least 6

The New York Times reports five settlements. Taking into account this article by the Chicago Tribune and this one by AXIOS, I compiled a list of accusers (in no particular order):

  1. Andrea Mackris
  2. Wendy Walsh
  3. Rebecca Gomez Diamond
  4. Juliet Huddy
  5. Laurie Dhue
  6. Andrea Tantaros
  7. Rachel Witlieb Bernstein (claimed verbal abuse, not clear to me if there were any lewd comments)

Roger Ailes: at least 9

Huffington Post gives the names of eight. Since then, Alisyn Camerota ha also alleged sexual harassment. It isn't clear where the 20+ figure is derived, but there are certainly many different accusers.

Barack Obama: ?

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    In the absence of any reports of sexual assault allegation, I don't think supporting the 'zero' figure is unreasonable. Donald Trump thought that nobody was accusing Obama.
    – DJClayworth
    May 2, 2017 at 12:50
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    Anyone who has followed the news is aware of those numbers.
    – ventsyv
    May 2, 2017 at 23:37
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    #ventsyv, you've researched this and found that the numbers are not verifiable. They are plausible and in the ball park, but that's not the same thing.
    – Dr Xorile
    May 3, 2017 at 13:41
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    @DJClayworth: If there was some effort to show an absence of evidence, we could consider whether that was sufficient to consider it evidence of absence, but I don't see that here. There is an absence of evidence of the absense of evidence :-) Murphy points out in a comment above that uncredible claims do exist.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    May 3, 2017 at 17:28
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    Trump's statements certainly count as evidence of absence.
    – DJClayworth
    May 3, 2017 at 17:32

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