WASHINGTON - A businesswoman from Atlanta is the latest to come forward to accuse Herman Cain of sexual impropriety, alleging she had a 13-year sexual affair with the Republican presidential candidate already dogged by harassment allegations.
"It was pretty simple," Ginger White, currently unemployed, told an Atlanta TV station in an interview that aired on the supper-hour newscast on Monday.
"It wasn't complicated. I was aware that he was married. And I was also aware I was involved in a very inappropriate situation, relationship."
In the interview with Fox 5, White alleged her physical relationship with Cain ended about eight months ago, just before he announced he was running for president. She displayed phone records showing more than 60 calls or texts to a number she said was Cain's private cellphone as recently as September; the reporter texted the number and said the candidate called him back.
"He made it very intriguing," said the single mother. "It was fun. It was something that took me away from my sort of humdrum life at the time and it was exciting."
During their alleged 13-year relationship, White claimed Cain would fly her to cities where he was speaking and lavish her with gifts. She went public, White said, because the media was beginning to contact her to ask about the relationship.
To hear Cain tell it, however, White is the third woman to go public with lies. Even before the interview aired, he denied any relationship with her on CNN.
There will soon be "another accusation that I had an affair with someone, a woman," Cain told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
"I did not have an affair," he said. "I have done nothing wrong."
But his lawyer, Lin Wood, sent a perplexing statement to Atlanta's Fox 5 that contained no denial at all, but instead a command that the media mind its own business.
"This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace, this is not an accusation of an assault, which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate," the statement read.
"Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults — a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life."
The public's right to know "has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one's bedroom door," Wood added.
Cain has alerted his wife, Gloria, to the newest allegations to rock his campaign and discussed it with her, the lawyer said.
"He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavourably by members of the media."
Cain has already denied accusations of sexual harassment levelled against him by several women, including two who have gone public with their allegations.
"I have never acted inappropriately with anyone," he told a news conference amid the first wave of allegations.
The accusations have cast a cloud over his campaign, although it was his botched response two weeks ago to a foreign policy question about Libya, not the sexual harassment allegations, that have hurt him more in polls of Republican primary voters.
On Monday, he described White as an "acquaintance who I thought was a friend," adding his campaign intended to dissect her allegations "detail by detail, accusation by accusation."
In what's become a classic Cain technique, the one-time pizza magnate said he would not answer any detailed questions about White until he had more information about what she was alleging beyond her claim that she was his mistress for more than a decade.
"This individual's going to accuse me of an affair for an extended period of time. I don't want to specify because I don't know what's in the story," Cain said. "Through my attorney, we will respond to every detail and every allegation."
He added he had no intention of dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination with primaries just a few weeks away.
"Not as long as my wife is behind me and as long as my wife believes I should stay in this race, I'm staying in this race," he said.
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