Roy Moore associates continue to deny allegations
U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore and his supporters are not backing down, as the Alabama Republican faces allegations that he pursued teenagers when he was in his 30s.
"If the liberal media were half as interested in investigating these accusations against Judge Moore as they are in scaring up 1980s-era false gossip at the Gadsden Mall, then we would be getting to the bottom of this and moving on," Ben DuPre, Moore's former chief of staff on the Alabama Supreme Court, said during a statement in Montgomery, Alabama, on Tuesday.
"Allegations are words. They are not facts. Allegations are words," Moore ally Stan Cooke said. "They are not indictments, and they are not charges."
Moore's allies refused to take questions in what was billed as a press conference.
The clock is running down ahead of Moore's Dec. 12 race against Democrat Doug Jones, who, in some polls, is doing as well or better than Moore with voters in the heavily Republican state. Jones recently released a new ad in which he shows Attorney General Jeff Sessions — whose Alabama Senate seat he aims to take — saying he has no reason to deny the women's allegations.
Moore and his campaign doubles down on the accusations, and on the accusers. Moore's supporters have claimed without evidence that Washington Post reporters offered accusers thousands of dollars for their stories, a claim accuser Leigh Corfman — who says Moore sexually touched her when she was 14 — calls entirely untrue.
"My bank account has not flourished," Corfman told NBC's "Today" show. "If anything it's gone down because I'm not working."
The White House also doesn't appear to be walking completely away from Moore anytime soon. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News that "we want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through," seemingly contradicting an earlier statement of hers that no seat is worth inappropriate behavior towards a child.
Gloria Allred, the attorney for one of the accusers, issued the following statement moments after the Moore campaign statements on Tuesday:
"Initially there was a suggestion by a defender of Mr. Moore that the restaurant where Beverly Young Nelson worked was not in existence at the time that Beverly claimed that she worked there.
After it was proven beyond doubt by public records that the restaurant did exist at the time that Beverly stated that she worked there that argument ceased to be made.
Then Judge Moore stated in a letter to Sean Hannity that "Beverly Nelson was a party in a divorce action before me in Etowah County Circuit Court in 1999. No motion was made for me to recuse. In her accusations, Nelson did not mention that I was the judge assigned to her divorce case in 1999, a matter that apparently caused her no distress at a time that was 18 years closer to the alleged assault. Yet 18 years later while talking before the cameras about the supposed assault, she seemingly could not contain her emotions.'
Evidence has now been presented by Beverly's divorce attorney that Beverly never appeared before Judge Moore because there never was a hearing "before" the Judge.
The matter was dismissed because the parties reconciled, and because it was dismissed she never appeared before him.Beverly's divorce attorney, Rodney Ward, signed an Affidavit attesting to these facts and stating that he was unsure if Beverly even knew that her case had been assigned to Judge Moore.
Once her divorce attorney disclosed this information to the press we never heard that misleading statement from Judge Moore again.
Now, new statements are being made in a desperate attempt to continue to discredit Beverly and to divert the attention of voters from the fact that Roy Moore still has refused to state if he will testify under oath before.a Senate Committee as to Beverly's serious accusations against him.
Mr. Moore, will you or will you not agree to testify under oath before the United States Senate as Beverly has volunteered to do or will you hide behind a dumpster and the garbage that your campaign is collecting and distributing on a daily basis?"
