USA TODAY International Edition
GOP senator says Roy Moore should drop out of Alabama Senate race
Candidate questions timing of allegations
– Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore faced a fresh onslaught of Republican repudiation on Sunday, with one top GOP senator calling on the controversial exjudge to drop his campaign in the aftermath of allegations that Moore pursued relationships with teenage girls when he was in his early 30s.
In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said Moore should “step aside,” and he endorsed the idea of a write-in bid by current Alabama GOP Sen. Luther Strange. Toomey’s remarks represented yet another slap against Moore after the Washington Post reported last week that Moore pursued relationships with four teenage girls when he was in his early 30s.
One woman, Leigh Corfman, said she was 14 when Moore, then 32, took her to his home in 1979, undressed her and, according to the report, “touched her over her bra and underpants ... and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear.” The age of consent in Alabama, both then and now, is 16. Another woman, Gloria Deason, said she was 18 when Moore took her on a date and bought her wine.
Moore and his campaign have called the story false. Moore said on Saturday that he was “not been guilty of sexual misconduct with anyone” and had never purchased alcohol for underage women. Both Moore and his GOP allies in Alabama have questioned the timing of the story.
“Isn’t it strange after 40 years of constant investigation, that people have waited four weeks before a general election to bring their complaint?” Moore said. “That’s not a coincidence.”
But Moore’s denials have not calmed GOP jitters in Washington.
“We’ll probably never know for sure exactly what happened,” Toomey said. “But … I think the accusations have more credibility than the denial. I think it would be best if Roy would just step aside.”
Top White House officials stopped short of calling on Moore to drop out of the race, but they decried the allegations against him.
“I said very early that the conduct as described should disqualify anyone from serving in public office, and I’ll stand by that,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on ABC’s This Week. “Everybody should know that conduct is disqualifying.”
Marc Short, the White House’s legislative affairs director, said on Meet the Press, there’s “a special place in hell for people who have done those crimes.”
Both Toomey and Short said the timing of the Washington Post story — com WASHINGTON ing just weeks before the election — raised questions about the allegations.
“We here in Washington have to be careful as well in this,” Short said. Moore has been elected several times in Alabama, he said, and “the people of Alabama know Roy Moore better than we do here in Washington, DC.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said on CBS’ Face the Nation that Alabama voters will be the judge and jury for Moore, but that Moore’s “denial was not as strong as the allegations.”
The allegations against Moore threatened to overshadow the GOP’s focus on the Sunday shows: tax reform.
Short and others trumpeted the Republican push for an overhaul of the tax code, which they said would be a boon to the economy and to middle-class taxpayers. The House is expected to vote this week on its version of a tax bill; senators will begin debating a competing proposal in the Finance Committee.
“It is the most profound tax reform in over 30 years,” Toomey said. The “vast majority” of Americans would get a tax cut under the GOP bill, Toomey said, and “we’re going to take the U.S. business tax code from one of the worst in the world ... to one of the best in the world.”
GOP lawmakers tried to deflect questions about some middle-class families who would see an increase in their taxes under the GOP bill. Toomey said there could be “some outliers” who could see an increase but it would be limited to higher-income earners.
On another flash point, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Texas GOP Rep. Kevin Brady, said he and other House Republicans would reject the Senate proposal to eliminate the state and local tax deduction. Several GOP lawmakers from high-tax states have said that provision would hit their constituents too hard.
The House bill would allow a deduction for up to $10,000 in property taxes, but end deductions for income or sales taxes; the Senate would eliminate all of them.
“Isn’t it strange after 40 years ... that people have waited four weeks before a general election to bring their complaint?” Roy Moore