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GOP Leaders Call On Roy Moore To Quit Alabama Senate Race; New Accuser Comes Forward, Moore Refutes


The top Republican in the Senate said Monday GOP candidate Roy Moore should quit his Alabama race amid allegations he had an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old girl and pursued relationships with other teenage girls decades ago. “I believe the women,” said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Also Monday, the head of the Senate Republican campaign committee said if Roy Moore wins his race in Alabama, the Senate should vote to expel him.

McConnell’s remarks came days after the Washington Post report that rocked the campaign for what the GOP had considered an inevitable special election win on Dec. 12. When the story first broke last Thursday, the Kentucky Republican had said Moore should step aside if the allegations were true.

McConnell, questioned at a tax event in Louisville, said a write-in effort by another candidate was a possibility.

“That’s an option we’re looking at … whether or not there is someone who can mount a write-in campaign successfully,” McConnell said. Asked specifically about current Sen. Luther Strange, the loser to Moore in a party primary, he said, “We’ll see.”

Shortly after McConnell made his remarks Monday, Moore tweeted his response.

Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado says in a statement that he believes the women who accused Moore and that they spoke with “courage and truth.” Gardner says what they recounted proves Moore is unfit to serve in the Senate and should not run for office.

Gardner says if Moore refuses to withdraw from the Alabama race and wins, “the Senate should vote to expel him, because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate.”

Meanwhile, a new accuser said Monday that Roy Moore assaulted her when she was a 16-year-old waitress in the 1970’s. Beverly Young Nelson described the assault, which she said took place in Moore’s locked car as he tried preventing her from leaving. She added that Moore had warned her no one would believe her because he was a county district attorney.

Even before Nelson’s news conference, Moore’s campaign released a statement saying that attorney Gloria Allred – who’s representing Nelson – “is a sensationalist leading a witch hunt.” It said Moore is innocent and “has never had any sexual misconduct with anyone.

Standing by his wife’s side at a hastily called news conference Monday evening, Moore said the latest claim is “absolutely false.” He said he did not even know Beverly Young Nelson and “never did what she said I did.”

Moore says the accusations against him are a “political maneuver.”

Moore says he is unfamiliar with the restaurant where the woman said Moore was a regular customer. Nelson had shown reporters her high school yearbook that she said Moore signed in 1977.

Kayla Moore defended her husband, saying he is the “most gentle, most kind man that I have ever known.”

Moore did not take questions from reporters.

On the Democratic side, one of the Senate’s moderate members is helping Moore’s challenger raise campaign funds, underscoring the party’s wary approach in an Alabama race that until recently was viewed as a virtually certain win for the GOP.

In fact, the fundraising bid by Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., doesn’t mention allegations about Moore.

“Doug’s opponent, Roy Moore, is an extremist with a record of putting political ideology above the rule of law,” Donnelly wrote in a weekend email soliciting contributions for Democrat Doug Jones. Moore and Jones face a Dec. 12 special election to replace Strange, who was appointed to replace Jeff Sessions when Sessions was named U.S. attorney general.

Donnelly’s email also cites Jones’ background as “the son of a steelworker” and a prosecutor who “worked to lock away members of the KKK and terrorists for despicable acts of violence.”

Donnelly faces re-election next year in Indiana and is considered one of his party’s most endangered incumbents.

In a further indication of Democrats’ caution, the party’s No. 2 Senate leader, Richard Durbin, dodged a question Sunday about what the Senate should do if Moore is elected. He tried to shift the focus back to Republicans.

“President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party in America. It’s his responsibility to step forward and say more and do more when it comes to the situation in Alabama,” Durbin, D-Ill., said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Moore said a lawsuit will be filed over the Post report that detailed the allegations against him.

While pressure to quit the race four weeks before Election Day intensified from within the Republican Party, Moore assured supporters Sunday night at a Huntsville, Alabama, gym that the article was “fake news” and “a desperate attempt to stop my political campaign.”

Moore said allegations that he was involved with a minor child are “untrue” and said the newspaper “will be sued,” drawing a round of applause. The former judge also questioned why such allegations would be leveled for the first time so close to the special election in spite of his decades in public life.

“Why would they come now? Because there are groups that don’t want me in the United States Senate,” he said, naming the Democratic Party and the Republican establishment and accusing them of working together. He added, “We do not plan to let anybody deter us from this race.”

The Post story quoted four women by name, including the woman who alleged relationship at 14, and had two dozen other sources.

Moore, too, has tried to raise money from the controversy, writing in a fundraising pitch that the “vicious and sleazy attacks against me are growing more vicious by the minute.”

Even if Moore were to step aside, his name would likely remain on the ballot. And any effort to add Strange as a write-in candidate would threaten to divide the GOP vote in a way that would give the Democratic candidate a greater chance of winning.

Moore is an outspoken Christian conservative and former state Supreme Court judge.

While he has called the allegations “completely false and misleading,” in an interview with conservative radio host Sean Hannity he did not wholly rule out dating teenage girls when he was in his early 30s. Asked if that would have been usual for him, Moore said, “Not generally, no.”

The situation has stirred concern among anxious GOP officials in Washington in a key race to fill the Senate seat once held by Sessions. Losing the special election to a Democrat would imperil Republicans’ already slim 52-48 majority. But a Moore victory also would pose risks if he were to join the Senate GOP under a cloud of inappropriate underage allegations.

(AP)



5 Responses

  1. Top Republicans have come out against Moore but not the Orange haired menuval himself.

    Kind of funny how Republicans nominate and vote for a man who was caught on tape boasted of assaulting ladies, had many ladies accuse him of assault and boasted of committing adultery in his book yet are condemning a man running for Senate who did essentially the same thing.

  2. 1, Note the source of the article – not exactly a reliable non-partisan source.

    2. Note that those attacking Moore are his political opponents. The Republican leadership bitterly opposed him, as do the Democrats. Accusations and condemnations from one’s enemies should be “taken with a grain of salt.”

    3. Forty year old charges against someone who has been a well known public figure should make one skeptical. The charges have no hard evidence, and are coming from (in some cases) hard core Democrats (e.g. donors, people on the Democrats’ payroll etc.). By comparison, similar charges against President Clinton were made by a supporter, soon after the event, and with physical evidence. There are good question to see this as a hoax, similar to the Democratic sponsored (and paid for) “dossier” last year accusing Trump of various sexual perversions – suggest that such “fake news” is now a standard Democratic strategy.

  3. Akuperma – Ben Carson was an early Moore supporter. He backed him.in the primary and has now withdrawn his support. He is not the only one. This is not “fake news” and has nothing to do with Democratic donors and BTW the so called Trump “dossier” is not entirely false either. Many parts have been corroborated by US intelligence (then again Trumpees think US intelligence is just a bunch of political hacks) and in any case Trump himself has bosted about his sexual perversions so what exactly are you trying to defend.

  4. Akuperma – AP is a perfectly reliable source. Why are you casting asperations? Which part of the article is subject to debate. Do you think thay AP made up these accusers? They are reporting on what the women said. What is your issue with that? Time to stop reading Breitbart and Infowars.

  5. Crazykanoiy-I think the Republicans were once insignificant figures
    at one point in their lives,and they can all remember saying crazy stuff about
    anything.So the President said crazy stuff what he wanted to do with ladies.What does the crazy rant of a Goy from many years ago have to do with Moore??
    We all know by now that the President has a flair of saying crazy stuff at anytime,but like who cares,as the Constitution did not forbid a person that can say outlandish statements from running for the top job in the land.
    So you bring up the ladies that accused the President of exactly what,I do not even recall,for whereon earth are they and what happened to them???
    And you go and compare this to Moore,who it seems as acted inappropriately with young girls???
    Look,I agree with you that Moore is looking like bad news,as more people are speaking,as he is getting a bad name.But still,I never saw a whole group of ladies try to bad name the President.
    And look,I know already that you abhor the President,and think he is the worst who knows what.But as I have written before,and I will reiterate,a Goy is a Goy period.
    How can a Jew look up to the President as he is some shining star to relax under.A President is a Goy that is capable of doing all the forbidden stuff hateful to our eyes, for he has no good inclination.
    I am sure you know all this crazykanoiy,andII just wish I understood from you what you want from the President.He is a Goy,but no need to make him worst than he is already,if there is no proof too,and what have you gained.Pence is a Goy,Clinton is a Goy.
    I personally thought most of the nation looked down at the President already from JFK time,when it became clear of all the bad things he was doing in the White House-cheating on his wife.

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