On the same day that President Donald Trump announced his support for Roy Moore – the disgraced Alabama senate candidate accused of sexually assaulting at least nine women, two of them minors – more lurid details about the scandal emerged.
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviewed an Ex-Alabama police officer Faye Gray Tuesday, and her comments about Moore’s reputation were stunning.
The small town of Gadsden – about an hour’s drive northeast from Birmingham – entered the national spotlight earlier this month after the Washington Post story exposing Moore as a likely sexual predator broke. As more journalists and investigators dug into his past, we learned that authorities had banned Moore from the Gadsden mall because of his well-known proclivity for teenaged girls – well into his 30s!
“We were advised that he was being suspended from the mall because he would hang around the young girls who worked in the stores… and he really got to a place where they said he was harassing them,” the retired 37-year Gadsden Police veteran Gray revealed Tuesday.
Gray then revealed another stunning detail about Moore’s prowling habits around this same time.
“We were also told to watch him at the ballgames and make sure that he didn’t hang around the cheerleaders,” Faye said.
These shocking details only add legitimacy to the picture painted by his accusers, that of a man with a sick infatuation with young girls, and a willingness to abuse his stature and the power his position as district attorney to indulge it.
Desperate to hang on until the December 12th election for Alabama’s open senate seat, Moore has continued to deny, deny deny. The strategy appears to be working. Despite high-profile renouncements from the Republican establishment, many Alabama GOP faithful and continue to support him. And today, President Trump decided to throw his weight behind the embattled former judge, saying, “Roy Moore denies it, that’s all I can say,” Trump said. The president also added that Moore is still the better choice over a Liberal who he says is, “soft on crime, soft on the border.”
The president’s words were carefully chosen. By focusing on the Alabama Republican’s denials, he not only turns the issue into a generic ‘he said / she said’ situation; he gives himself an opening to attack Democrats who’ve made the morally laudable decision to admit to sexual harassment charges by their accusers and offer apologies of varying degrees of authenticity.
There’s also a coded message for his supporters in this line of defense made by the president today: If sexual assault allegations against Moore should be overlooked simply because he has denied them, then all sexual assault allegations must be overlooked by everyone else who denies them – up to and including President Trump’s denials of the 16 women who have come forward to accuse him. Wink, wink.
How convenient. You can watch Andrea Mitchell’s interview with Faye Gray below.
