Republican party cuts ties with Roy Moore over sexual misconduct allegations

The Republican party formally cut ties with Roy Moore on Tuesday as the chorus of Republicans calling for Roy Moore to exit the Senate race over sexual misconduct allegations grew louder.

The Republican National Committee pulled out of a joint fundraising agreement with the party’s Senate nominee in Alabama less than a month before the election, according to a filing with the with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The move came as the top Republican in the state called for Moore to be pulled from the ballot.

Richard Shelby, the senior senator from Alabama, became the latest to call for Moore to be pulled from the ballot. “If they pull him they’d have another candidate, I’d like to see another candidate,” he said.

Shelby, who supported Moore’s opponent Luther Strange in the primary, made his statement after it was reported that the Alabama Republican party’s state central committee will meet later this week in an attempt to address the political fallout surrounding claims that the controversial Alabama Senate nominee sexually assaulted teenage girls.

National Republicans have swarmed to denounce Moore in the past few days. Most recently the House speaker, Paul Ryan, the most senior Republican in Congress, told reporters on Tuesday that if Moore “cares about the values and the people who he claims to care about, then he should step aside”.

Ryan joins a number of leading Republicans who have said that Moore, the party’s standard bearer in next month’s special election for the US Senate in Alabama, should withdraw from the race after multiple allegations about his relations with teenage girls, which he denies.

He joins Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and a number of senators, one of whom, Jeff Flake of Arizona, has said a vote for Moore’s Democratic opponent would be preferable to a vote for the Alabama Republican.

McConnell amplified his criticisms on Tuesday, saying that Republicans were looking into the possibility of a write-in candidate against Moore and that the Alabama Republican was “obviously not fit to be in the United States Senate”.

In response, Moore tweeted: “The good people of Alabama, not the Washington elite who wallow in the swamp, will decide this election! #DitchMitch.”

The Republican response came as party insiders worried about the political ramifications of association with Moore. Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican representing a swing seat, tweeted on Tuesday night: “It’s about that time for that creepy Roy Moore dude to exit stage left. He should step aside & let someone take his spot on the ballot who doesn’t prey upon young teenage girls as a grown man.”

Moore has long been a controversial figure even before recent allegations. He was twice removed as chief justice of the Alabama supreme court for defying court orders. First in 2003 over his insistence that a Ten Commandments monument be placed on the grounds of the state judicial building, and then in 2016 for attempting to defy the US supreme court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. The result was that only a handful of senators explicitly backed his candidacy even after Moore clinched the nomination. Of those, only Rand Paul of Kentucky has yet to withdraw his support.

Moore is seeking to fill the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, who was appointed by Trump to serve as attorney general.

Sessions suggested on Tuesday he believed the women who have come forward to speak out against Moore, but stopped short of weighing in on how his department would approach the matter should Moore be elected.

“I have no reason to doubt these young women,” Sessions said during a hearing before the House judiciary committee on oversight of the Department of Justice.

Asked by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, if the DoJ would investigate the allegations, Sessions said they would typically constitute a case at the state level.

“We will evaluate every case as to whether or not it should be investigated,” Sessions said, while adding he had been told by the ethics team at the DoJ not to engage politically in the Alabama Senate campaign given that he previously held the same seat.

“They advised me that the attorney general should not be involved in this campaign,” Sessions said.

He nonetheless added that if Moore were to win and a case was brought to the DoJ, “We will do our duty.”

On Tuesday Beverly Young Nelson alleged Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 16.

Nelson said that Moore physically attacked her in a car, grabbing her breasts and trying to force her head down on to his crotch.

“I thought he was going to rape me,” said Nelson.

Nelson’s statement follows a Washington Post report last week that Moore had had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl and pursued three other teenagers when he was in his 30s.

Moore denied the new accusations. “I can tell you without hesitation this is absolutely false,” Moore told a crowd in Gallant, Alabama. “I never did what she said I did. I don’t even know the woman. I don’t know anything about her. I don’t know where the restaurant is or was.”

Nelson presented a high school yearbook at her press conference she claimed had been signed and dated by Moore.