President Donald Trump believes Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore “will do the right thing and step aside” should the bombshell sexual misconduct allegations against him are true.
That’s according to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who told reporters traveling with Trump in Asia that the president believes a “mere allegation” — especially one from many years ago — shouldn’t be allowed to destroy a person’s life.
But Sanders said that, “The president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.”
The Washington Post reported Thursday that an Alabama woman said Moore had sexual contact with her when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney.
The Moore campaign denied the report as “the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation.”
Defiant as ever, Moore himself issued a fundraising appeal asking for emergency donations in a “spiritual battle.”
“I believe you and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values,” he wrote. “I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight!”
Other conservative leaders, however, have demanded he get out of the race if the accusations prove true.
The instant fallout followed a report in which an Alabama woman said Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, had sexual contact with her when she was 14. Three other women interviewed by The Washington Post said Moore, now 70, approached them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s. All four women spoke on the record to The Post.
Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice, has made his name in Republican politics through his public devotion to hardline Christian conservative positions. He was twice removed from his Supreme Court position, once for disobeying a federal court order to remove a 5,200 pound granite Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building, and later for urging state probate judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.
On Thursday, the man Moore defeated in the Republican primary, current Sen. Luther Strange, left open the possibility he may re-enter the campaign.
Moore’s name cannot be removed from the ballot before the Dec. 12 special election even if he withdraws from the race, according to John Bennett, a spokesman for the Alabama secretary of state. A write-in campaign remains possible, Bennett added.
Strange wouldn’t immediately say whether he’d re-enter the race.
“Well, that’s getting the cart ahead of the horse. But I will have something to say about that. Let me do some more research,” he told reporters.
The Alabama special election is to fill the vacancy created when Trump tapped Sen. Jeff Sessions to serve as the U.S. attorney general. Then-Gov. Robert Bentley appointed Strange in the interim.
Reaction after the story was published was swift and severe.
“The allegations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore are deeply troubling,” said Colorado Sen. Chairman Cory Gardner, who leads the Senate GOP campaign arm. “If these allegations are found to be true, Roy Moore must drop out of the Alabama special Senate election.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell added, “If these allegations are true, he must step aside.”
The intensity of the reaction may partly reflect lingering bad feelings from the primary contest between Strange and Moore, held in late September. Much of the Republican establishment — including McConnell — supported Strange, while the GOP’s more conservative flank — including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon — backed Moore.
Bannon referenced Moore only briefly during an appearance Thursday night in New Hampshire, attacking The Washington Post as an “apparatus of the Democratic Party.”
Moore’s Democratic challenger, former U.S. attorney Doug Jones, had little to say aside from an eight-word campaign statement: “Roy Moore needs to answer these serious charges.”
“The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying,” said Arizona Sen. John McCain. “He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of.”
Texas Sen. John Cornyn said, “If it is true I don’t think his candidacy is sustainable.”
Alabama law lists the legal age of consent as 16.
The state’s statute of limitations for bringing felony charges involving sexual abuse of a minor in 1979 would have run out three years later. Corfman never filed a police report or a civil suit.
None of the other women said that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact.
The Associated Press contributed to this article