GOP shaken by Moore sex scandal
What happened
Senior Republicans called on former judge Roy Moore to quit the U.S. Senate race in Alabama this week, after the GOP candidate was accused of pursuing or sexually assaulting five teenagers in the late 1970s and 1980s. Leigh Corfman, 53, told The Washington Post she was 14 when Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, took her to his home and molested her. Beverly Young Nelson, 55, said Moore assaulted her in his car when she was 16, groping her and trying to force her head into his crotch. After she resisted, Nelson said, Moore told her no one would believe her if she spoke out, because “You’re just a child.” Three other women said Moore either dated or tried to date them when they were ages 16 to 18; The New Yorker reported that he was banned from the mall in his hometown, Gadsden, for bothering teenage girls. Moore, 70, dismissed the allegations as “fake news,” saying he didn’t “generally” date teens when he was in his 30s.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared, “I believe the women,” and said he was considering asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to mount a write-in campaign to win back his old seat. The Alabama Republican Party can withdraw Moore’s nomination for the Dec. 12 election, but it is too late for his name to be removed from the ballot. National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner said if Moore wins, the Senate should vote to expel him, a step that hasn’t been taken since 1862. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Trump believed Moore should step aside “if these allegations are true.”
What the editorials said
Moore has long been “grossly unfit” for high office, said Alabama’s Birmingham News. He was twice dismissed as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court—first for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the judicial building, then for illegally enforcing a ban on same-sex marriage. But these sickening allegations, for which Moore has no credible defense, should be the final nail in his political coffin. It doesn’t matter that there is no “proof” of his wrongdoing. “Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a consideration for the courtroom, not the ballot box.”