New sex assault allegation hits Moore; he calls it false

WASHINGTON (AP) — A second woman emerged Monday to accuse Roy Moore of sexually assaulting her as a teenager in the late 1970s, this time in a locked car, further roiling the Alabama Republican’s candidacy for an open Senate seat. Moore strongly denied it, even as his own party’s leaders intensified their efforts to push him out of the race.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took a remarkably personal swipe at his party’s candidate for a Senate seat the GOP cannot afford to lose. “I believe the women,” he said, marking an intensified effort by leaders to ditch Moore before a Dec. 12 special election that has swung from an assured GOP victory to one that Democrats could conceivably swipe.

Moore abruptly called a news conference in Gallant, Alabama, after a tearful Beverly Young Nelson’s detailed the new allegations to reporters in New York.

“I can tell you without hesitation this is absolutely false. I never did what she said I did. I don’t even know the woman,” Moore said.

He signaled he has no intention of ending his candidacy, calling the latest charges a “political maneuver” and launching a fundraising appeal to “God-fearing conservatives” to counter his abandonment by Washington Republicans.

In the latest day of jarring events, McConnell, R-Ky., and Moore essentially declared open war on each other. McConnell said the former judge should quit the race over a series of recent allegations of past improper relationships with teenage girls. No, said Moore, the Kentucky senator is the one who should get out.

Cory Gardner of Colorado, who heads the Senate GOP’s campaign organization, said not only should Moore step aside but if he should win “the Senate should vote to expel him because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate.”

Moore, an outspoken Christian conservative and former state Supreme Court judge, fired back at McConnell on Twitter.

“The person who should step aside is @SenateMajLdr Mitch McConnell. He has failed conservatives and must be replaced. #DrainTheSwamp,” Moore wrote.

Nelson’s news conference came after that exchange and injected a new,

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