GOP at odds with candidate over accusation
WASHINGTON—A month before Alabama’s special election, Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore abruptly faced lurid allegations Thursday of sexual misconduct with minors decades ago— and an immediate backlash from party leaders who demanded he get out of the race if the accusations prove true.
The instant fallout followed a Washington Post report in which an Alabama woman said 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, approached them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s. All four women spoke on the record to the Post.
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 allout 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 5,200 pound granite Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building, and later for urging state probate judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.
On Thursday, senior Republicans swiftly called for Moore to step aside from the Senate race if the allegations are shown to be true. And the man he defeated in the Republican primary, current Sen. Luther Strange, left open the possibility he may re-enter the campaign.
Moore’s name cannot be removed from the ballot before the Dec. 12 special election even if he withdraws from the race, according to John Bennett, a spokesman for the Alabama secretary of state. A write-in campaign remains possible, Bennett added.
Reaction after the Post story was published online was swift and severe.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell added, “If these allegations are true, he must step aside.”
Neither Bannon nor the White House had an immediate comment. But on the ground in Alabama, some Republicans were willing to downplay the allegations.
“Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus,” Alabama state Auditor Jim Ziegler told The Washington Examiner.