Roy Moore: “This Came as a Complete Shock”

“TRUTH WILL PREVAIL”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Nov. 24, 2017) — In a “friendly” interview with former Alabama State Senator and “Reality Check” host Scott Beason on Tuesday, Republican U.S. Senate candidate and former judge Roy Moore told Beason that he was “shocked” when allegations of sexual and behavioral misconduct were published by The Washington Post beginning on November 9.

Beason premised the allegations at the beginning of the interview on the assumption that they are false.  Like Moore, Beason is considered “controversial” and reportedly made denigrating remarks about black Americans while wearing a wire for an FBI investigation several years ago.

Such remarks are thoroughly condemned by this publication.

At 17:15, following the first segment of the show, Beason identified himself as “a commentator” as opposed to a journalist.  While the former express strong opinions about politics and policy, the latter are expected to be objective and to have no stake in any controversy on which they are reporting.

In recent decades, the media has often slanted its reportage, with most “mainstream” outlets favoring the political left.

After his soliloquy, Beason brought Moore, who was seated at a table with Beason, into the conversation. At 9:32, Moore said that the accusations have been difficult for his family, including his 91-year-old mother.

Moore, 70, recounted that he has served as a deputy district attorney, circuit court judge, and twice as the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.  He said that three formal judicial inquiries, including while he presided over the state supreme court on two occasions, had ample opportunity to delve into his background.

“This has gone on for years and years and years, and this was a complete shock out of left field, and it came the day after they said I was 11 points ahead,” Moore told Beason of the accusations leveled in The Post.

Beason raised the revelation made ten days ago of a congressional fund which has reportedly paid out more than $15 million over the last two decades to individuals alleging sexual harassment against members of Congress, including 54-year Congressman John Conyers.

Shortly before the 15:00 mark in the interview, Beason dismissed the accounts of several of the women featured in The Post’s articles, asserting that they were “of age” and that even if true, no wrongdoing was alleged.  He told the audience that he intended to discuss the allegations of the two remaining women:  Beverly Young Nelson and Leigh Corfman.

At 18:40, Beason brought up Nelson’s November 13 press conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred, recounting that Moore’s campaign later demanded that Allred release a yearbook held up during the presser appearing to show Moore’s signature dated December 22, 1977 to a neutral party for examination.

When questioned on November 15 by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Allred did not definitively say that Moore’s alleged signature was authentic.

Moore said that Young Nelson had petitioned for a divorce in the circuit in which Moore was then serving as a judge.  While the case was first in front of a lower court judge, Moore said, it eventually reached him for adjudication, contradicting Young Nelson’s claim that she had “no contact” with him after the incident in which Moore reportedly sexually accosted her when she was 16.

Beason rejoined that Young Nelson may not have had contact with him even during the divorce, with which Moore agreed, while maintaining that the parties in the procedure “know” who the presiding judge is. “You don’t go through a divorce in any county without knowing who the judge is,” he said.

Young Nelson ultimately withdrew the petition, Moore said.

Allred has thus far refused the Moore campaign’s request to release the yearbook for a handwriting analysis, as Moore has repeatedly noted in his Twitter feed each day.

Just as with reports that Barack Hussein Obama’s long-form birth certificate was found to be a forgery, The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel reacted to the Moore-Beason interview by failing to report Moore’s claim that his purported signature in Young Nelson’s yearbook is fraudulent.

Moore said that he did not know either Young Nelson or Corfman and that he has always obeyed the law.  “This is something you just don’t do,” Moore told Beason of misconduct with minors.

At 23:26, Beason asked Moore if he “plans to pursue any legal action,” to which Moore responded, “It takes time to develop a case…There are things coming out in the future which I can’t talk about…It takes time to find out people that you don’t know, where they’re from, when they left their job and they’re gone and you can’t find them…”

Moore deplored the media’s publishing of allegations which he said were “not corroborated,” which he said places “a burden” on the accused.  “I didn’t have any wrongful relationships, any sexual misconduct with an underage woman,” Moore asserted.

Moore claimed that he has presented “facts” to the major media refuting the women’s claims which it has chosen not to make public.

At 26:00, Beason brought up the allegations that Moore was “banned” from the Gadsden Mall for allegedly harassing young women clerks between approximately 1977 and 1982, to which Moore stated that if the district attorney, under whom he was working at the time, learned that Moore was harassing people, “it would have been on the front page of the paper.”

At 27:30, Beason asked Moore about his interview with Sean Hannity in which Moore was criticized for failing to refute the claims strongly enough, causing Hannity to issue his own ultimatum to Moore to “get out of this race.”

At 29:05, Beason disclosed that Moore had met with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after winning the Republican primary in September against currently-seated U.S. Senator Luther Strange.

Strange was appointed by former Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, who resigned earlier this year in the midst of an alleged infidelity scandal.  The appointment came after Sen. Jeff Sessions was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be Trump’s attorney general in February.

After a short break, Beason asked Moore of his visit with McConnell, “How did that meeting go?”

Moore said that in order to defeat him, McConnell spent “$30 million” but “we won.”  Moore said he  considers himself “a forgiving person” and approached his meeting with the senate majority leader in that spirit.

“They were very nice; they came around and talked and did things, but as soon as I got back, as soon as this story came out, immediately, if not before, they dropped me and turned against me,” Moore said (31:20).

Beason compared Washington to Montgomery, AL, where the state legislature meets, stating that politicians at the state Capitol are more amenable to “making friends” with former political adversaries.

At 32:52, Beason asked Moore why he believes he has been targeted by the Washington political “establishment.”  “They didn’t want a conservative rebel that they couldn’t manage,” Moore responded. “I’ve just never been manageable; I don’t plan to be manageable; when I go to Washington I’ll take the knowledge of God and the knowledge of the Constitution of the United States to the people there and show them there that they’ve got to follow this document…”

“Truth will prevail,” Moore told Beason at 35:05.

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This story was updated at 3:29 p.m. EST to add Sean Hannity’s commentary to Moore following their November 14 radio interview.