Allies of Roy Moore offered several pieces of “new evidence” on Tuesday that they claimed should discredit the two women who accused the Alabama Senate GOP nominee of sexual assault.
Speaking at a press conference in Alabama, Moore’s former chief of staff Ben Dupree said Leigh Corfman, one of several women who have come forward with allegations against Moore, was lying when she claimed the former judge would pick her up around the corner from her mother’s house when she was barely a teenager and take her back to his home.
“Corfman claims that Moore picked her up around the corner from her house. However, according to public records, we’ve been able to find that Corfman’s supposed pick-up place was more than a mile away from her mother’s house,” Dupree said, claiming that Corfman was living with her father at the time.
Corfman told the Washington Post this month that Moore once initiated sexual contact after they arrived at his house. She claims she was 14 years old at the time and Moore was in his early 30s.
She has also said her life “spiraled out of control” after the alleged incident with Moore, something the candidate’s campaign disputed other Tuesday.
Reading court documents from a decades-old custody battle between Corfman’s mother and father, the campaign staffer said both of Corfman’s parents had “become increasingly worried about her destructive behavior” prior to her alleged encounter with Moore.
The Moore campaign also went after Beverly Young Nelson, who accused the Alabama Republican of sexually assaulting her in his vehicle outside of a restaurant she worked at when she was 15. During the press conference where she first accused Moore of foul play, Nelson produced a yearbook that she claimed he signed, but Moore’s staff said that signature was faked.
“One of our attorneys pointed out that the message in the yearbook had been altered or faked to mock Moore’s signature,” Moore campaign spokesman Stan Cooke told reporters. “[Nelson’s attorney Gloria] Allred has refused to release the yearbook and she said on MSNBC that even if the yearbook entry was altered, it would not impact the integrity of the allegation.”
The staffer said details of Nelson’s story were inconsistent with what employees of the diner she worked at had told Moore’s campaign.
“Former waitresses at the Old Hickory House restaurant said employees had to be 16 years old. And the dumpsters [where Nelson claimed Moore parked his car and tried to assault her] were located to the side, not to the back,” Cooke said.
“Nelson claimed that Judge Moore came in every night and sat at the counter, but employees told us that regular customers who sat at the counter were served by the short order cook and almost never interacted with the wait staff,” he added.
Dean Young, a longtime friend of Moore’s and a former congressional GOP candidate, said the allegations against him prove that Alabama voters are being tricked by the media.
“I want you to understand Alabamians, that the Judge Moore you knew two weeks ago is the same Judge Moore,” he claimed.
Young said the future of the United States hinges on the outcome of the Dec. 12 Alabama Senate election, since it is the “first senatorial race since Donald Trump took office.”
“You were the ones who were put here, I believe by God, to make this decision… and the question is, can you be tricked?” he asked.
Trump himself has yet to publicly condemn Moore. Prior to departing Washington on Tuesday, the president told reporters he doesn’t “need a liberal Democrat” in the open Alabama Senate seat.
