Alabama County GOP Official Offers Sick Defense of Roy Moore Amid New Disturbing Sexual Allegations

In a stunningly despicable and sickening statement from Marion County, Alabama Republican Party chairman David Hall, the local party official reportedly said he doesn’t “see the relevance” of recent allegations against Roy Moore, candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama.

Moore, who is running in a special election to replace Jeff Sessions, who is now President Trump’s attorney general, was reported to have made inappropriate sexual advances on a 14-year-old girl in the late 1970s, when Moore was 32-years-old. Moore’s senate campaign has denied the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post on Thursday, calling them “fake news.”

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans in Washington, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have already said that if the allegations are true, then Moore should “step aside.” While not many Republicans in Washington have come to Moore’s defense in the wake of the allegations, one local GOP offical in Alabama says that even if the claims are true, he’d still vote for Moore.

Reached for comment by the Toronto Star’s Washington Correspondent Daniel Dale, Hall said:

It was 40 years ago. I really don’t see the relevance of it. He was 32. She was supposedly 14. She’s not saying that anything happened other than they kissed.

“It was 40 years ago,” Alabama Marion County GOP chair David Hall tells me. “I really don’t see the relevance of it. He was 32. She was supposedly 14. She’s not saying that anything happened other than they kissed.”

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 9, 2017

But as the Washington Post reported, and Dale further pressed Hall on, “the story said she said he tried to get her to touch his genitals.” According to Dale, Hall responded by saying:

Well, she said he may have TRIED to. But we’re talking something that somebody SAID happened 40 years ago. It wouldn’t affect whether or not I’d vote for him.”

Me: “The story said she said he tried to get her to touch his genitals.” Hall: “Well, she said he may have TRIED to. But we’re talking something that somebody SAID happened, 40 years ago. It wouldn’t affect whether or not I’d vote for him.”

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 9, 2017

Hall isn’t the only local GOP official in Alabama to defend Moore. Bibb County Republican Party chairman Jerry Pow reportedly told Dale of the Toronto Star newspaper, “I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn’t want to vote for [Democratic candidate] Doug [Jones].”

After a long pause, Alabama Bibb County Republican chairman Jerry Pow tells me he’d vote for Roy Moore even if Moore did commit a sex crime against a girl.

“I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn’t want to vote for Doug,” he says. “I’m not saying I support what he did.”

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 9, 2017

Pow added that while he would still vote for Moore even if the allegations are true, that doesn’t mean he supports what Moore allegedly did.

There’s just one problem with Pow’s characterization, though. If Pow, Hall and others in Alabama vote for Moore even if they know the allegations are true, they are, whether they agree or not, supporting what Moore allegedly did.

It doesn’t matter if it allegedly happened 30 years, three years ago or three months ago. If it happened, anyone who votes for Moore is indirectly supporting such behavior.

As someone who voted for Sen. John McCain for president in 2008 and Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012, I simply could not bring myself to pull the lever for Donald Trump in 2016. The main reason I did not vote for Trump is because of the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which the now-president is heard bragging about “grabbing” women by their private parts because “they let you do it.”

The sexual assault allegations against Trump, of course, added to my concerns about Trump’s respect for women. It should have for any decent human being. Unfortunately, Trump’s America has made many of our fellow citizens numb to such disturbing allegations like the one against Moore in Alabama. I, however, refuse to become indifferent to such claims.

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