GOP puts heat on candidate over sex claim
UNITED STATES: A month before Alabama’s special election, Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore is facing lurid allegations of sexual misconduct with minors decades ago - and an immediate backlash from party leaders, who are demanding that he get out of the race if the accusations prove to be true.
The instant fallout yesterday followed a Washington Post report in which an Alabama woman said that Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, had sexual contact with her when she was 14. Three other women interviewed by the Post said Moore, now 70, also approached them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s.
The Moore campaign denied the report as ‘‘the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation’'.
Defiant as ever, Moore himself issued a fundraising appeal asking for emergency donations in a ‘‘spiritual battle’'.
‘‘I believe you and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values,’' he wrote. ‘‘I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight!’'
Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice, has made his name in Republican politics through his public devotion to hardline Christian conservative positions. He was twice removed from his Supreme Court position, once for disobeying a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building, and later for urging state probate judges to defy the US Supreme Court decision that legalised gay marriage.
Senior Republicans swiftly called for Moore to step aside from the Senate race if the allegations are shown to be true. The man he defeated in the Republican primary, current Senator Luther Strange, left open the possibility that he may re-enter the campaign.
The Alabama special election is to fill the vacancy created when US President Donald Trump shouldertapped Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as US attorney general. Then-governor Robert Bentley appointed Strange in the interim.
Reaction after the Post story was published was swift and severe.
‘‘The allegations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore are deeply troubling,’' said Colorado Senate Chairman Cory Gardner, who leads the Senate GOP campaign arm. ‘‘If these allegations are found to be true, Roy Moore must drop out.’'
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said: ‘‘If these allegations are true, he must step aside.’'
The intensity of the reaction may partly reflect lingering bad feelings from the primary contest between Strange and Moore, held in late September, which pitted much of the Republican establishment - including Trump - behind Strange, and the party’s more conservative flank - including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon behind Moore.
Neither Bannon nor the White House had an immediate comment.
The Post reported that Moore, then 32, first approached 14-yearold Leigh Corfman in early 1979 outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Alabama.
After phone calls and meetings, he drove her to his home some days later and kissed her, the newspaper quoted Corfman as saying.
On a second visit, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes except for his underwear before touching her over her bra and underpants, Corfman told the newspaper. He also guided her hand to touch him over his underwear, she said.
‘‘I wanted it over with - I wanted out,’' she told the Post. ‘‘Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.’'
None of the other women said that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact. –AP