Roy Moore's former Republican rival defends him, attacks his female accusers

Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks claims "flimsy" evidence offered by Moore accusers is "forged"

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published November 30, 2017 3:35PM (EST)

Mo Brooks (Youtube/Mo Brooks for Senate)
Mo Brooks (Youtube/Mo Brooks for Senate)

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., is defending former rival and Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore from the multiple accusations of sexual abuse by attacking Moore's female accusers.

"What you have is the mainstream leftwing socialist Democrat news media trying to distort the evidence to cause people to reach the conclusion that Roy Moore engaged in unlawful conduct with a minor and my analysis of the evidence is that is not the case," Brooks told an Alabama radio station this week. "Most importantly, the media likes to say 'well, there are nine complainers.' Seven of them aren't complainers. In fact, I would be calling seven of those ladies as witnesses on behalf of Roy Moore on the issue of whether he is engaged in any kind of unlawful conduct."

Brooks added, "There are only two that have asserted that Roy Moore engaged in unlawful conduct. One of those is clearly a liar because that one forged the 'love, Roy Moore' part of a yearbook in order to try to for whatever reason get at Roy Moore and win this seat for the Democrats and there's a lot more to it as to why I believe that the evidence is almost incontrovertible about whether the yearbook was forged."

In the yearbook to Beverly Young Nelson, who claims Moore tried to have sex with her when she was 16, Moore wrote, "To a sweeter more beautiful girl, I could not say, 'Merry Christmas.' Love, Roy Moore DA, 12-22-77, Olde Hickory House."

Brooks finished up his rant by saying that another witness' testimony was "in direct and stark contrast with that of the other seven ladies, who said that he acted like an officer and a gentleman. And you look at the preponderance of the evidence and then you add Roy Moore's denial and you add his long deeply held Christian beliefs and I just don't think there's any way in the world that a jury would agree with the assertions of The Washington Post and others that are trying to make us believe in the state of Alabama that we would be electing a pedophile."


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

MORE FROM Matthew Rozsa


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Alabama Senate Election 2017 Mo Brooks Roy Moore