Several women have accused Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for Alabama senator, of pursuing sexual encounters with them decades ago when they were teenagers.

Responses from Alabamian GOP officials, as recounted by a Toronto Star reporter on Twitter, have included denials of the claims by some and a willingness to overlook them by others.



GOP officials from Alabama have been offering startling and occasionally bizarre responses when asked about the allegations that Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for Alabama senator, pursued sexual encounters with teenage girls nearly 40 years ago.

Daniel Dale, a reporter with the Toronto Star, contacted numerous GOP officials from the state about the allegations, including that Moore, then 32, kissed and inappropriately touched a 14-year-old girl in 1979. He described their responses on Twitter on Thursday.

"It was 40 years ago," Alabama's Marion County Republican Party chair, David Hall, reportedly told Dale. "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."

"There's nothing wrong with a 30-year-old single male asking a 19-year-old, a 17-year-old, or a 16-year-old out on a date," Hall reportedly continued. The age of consent in Alabama is, and then was, 16.

According to a Washington Post report published Thursday, a woman named Leigh Corfman said that in 1979, Moore, then a 32-year-old district attorney, approached her in an Alabama courtroom and got her number. Corfman, then 14, said he later called her and drove her to his house, where, she told The Post, he removed her clothes and touched her through her bra and underwear. Corfman also said Moore gave her alcohol during one of two visits to his house.

Jerry Pow, the chair of Alabama's Bibb County Republican Party, apparently suggested his support for Moore would not waver because of his party ties.

"I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn't want to vote for" the Democratic nominee, Doug Jones, Pow said, according to Dale. "I'm not saying I support what he did."

Others took a more combative stance against the accusations.

"It does not really surprise me," John Skipper, the chair of Alabama's Mobile County Republican Party, reportedly said. "I think it is a typical Democratic — Democrat — ploy to discredit Judge Moore, a sincere, honest, trustworthy individual."

Three women other than Corfman were included in The Post's report. They told the newspaper that Moore had pursued relationships with them as teenagers between the ages of 16 and 18. The women said Moore did not engage in sexual conduct with them.

William Blocker, the chair of Alabama's Covington County Republican Party, reportedly told Dale that he thought Democrats persuaded the women in the report to lie about Moore. Dale said that when he pointed out that Corfman was a Trump supporter, Blocker said that was the "typical background" of someone Democrats would use for such a gambit.

"If they said she was a Hillary supporter, then she'd be more dismissed by the local voters here in the state of Alabama," Blocker said, according to Dale. "You'd have to paint her as a Trump supporter to be of any credibility."

Read some of the GOP officials' comments here: