Alva Johnson, the former campaign aide who accused then-candidate
Donald Trump of forcibly kissing her during a campaign stop, dropped her lawsuit on Wednesday.The lawsuit, which Johnson filed in late February, accused Trump of grabbing Johnson and kissing her against her will during a
Florida campaign stop in August 2016.The lawsuit was dismissed by Judge William Jung in June on the grounds that it constituted a “political lawsuit” rather than a “tort and wages” complaint. Rather than amending and refiling the lawsuit, Johnson elected to drop the matter due to the scale of Trump's resources.“I’m fighting against a person with unlimited resources, and repeatedly the judicial system has failed to find fault in his behavior,” Johnson told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “That’s a huge mountain to climb.”Johnson, 44, claimed in the suit that Trump treated her as a “sexual object that he felt entitled to humiliate and dominate” when the pair met in a crowded campaign RV.A video of the encounter released by Trump's lawyers in early July shows Trump touching Johnson's shoulders while pecking her on the cheek after she initiates conversation, undercutting her claim that the candidate kissed her on “the corner of her mouth” after she turned away to avoid his advance.Trump's attorney, Charles Harder, told the court that the video depicted an “innocent interaction that is mutual — and not forcible.”“If Plaintiff had been attacked, as she alleges, one would expect a far different response than telling him she’ll help him get elected President of the
United States,” Harder added in the July court filing.Johnson, meanwhile, said the video supported her version of events but was twisted by Trump's attorneys.“He has proven to be great at propaganda,” Johnson said of Trump. “They do a great job of changing the narrative, even when we see things with our own eyes.”The allegation received widespread coverage earlier this year; New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow wrote an article detailing Johnson's claims and MSNBC's Chris Hayes interviewed her on-air.