Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Alabama, launched a broadside against his Republican rival Roy Moore on Tuesday, saying that men found guilty of sexually harassing young girls should go to jail, not the Senate.
“I damn sure believe, and have done my part to ensure that men who hurt little girls should go to jail, and not the United States Senate,” Jones said during a speech in Birmingham, a week before the state’s special election. Jones contrasted Roy Moore’s multiple sexual misconduct allegations with Alabama’s former governor, Robert Bentley, who was forced to resign after a sex scandal in April. “We didn’t look away with Robert Bentley when his conduct involved consenting adults and we cannot look away now that it involves children,” Jones said. He also quoted his closing argument from his prosecution of two KKK members from the 1963 Birmingham Church bombing, saying “it’s never too late for a man to be held accountable for his crimes.”
Quote of the Day: "I damn sure believe and have done my part to ensure that men who hurt little girls should go to jail – and not to the U.S. Senate." – @GDouglasJones on Roy Moore. [via @Slade] pic.twitter.com/cRYZbiPTql
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) December 5, 2017
In a more humorous side-swipe at Moore, who’d previously brandished his revolver on-stage at a campaign rally, Jones said that “when you see me with a gun, I’ll be climbing in and out of a deer blind … not prancing around on a stage with a cowboy suit.”
Jones’ comments come a day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that the people of Alabama should decide Moore’s fate. McConnell had last month said that he believed Roy Moore’s accusers, and that he thought that Moore should “step aside from the race”, however, on CBS’ Face the Nation he flipped-flopped and said “We’ll swear in whoever’s elected and see where we are at that particular point”. On Tuesday, the Republican National Committee also reneged on its decision not to support Moore, as polls showed him bouncing back from the multiple accusations of sexual harassment reported last month. The President has also back Moore’s campaign, endorsing him on Twitter and casting doubt on Moore’s alleged victims.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday morning, Roy Moore’s spokeswoman and anti-abortion extremist, Janet Porter, delivered an absolutely bizarre interview on CNN’s Poppy Harlow, suggesting that Doug Jones supported killing the unborn baby of Harlow, who is eight-months pregnant. “[Judge Roy Moore] stands for the rights of babies like yours in the womb,” Porter said. “Where his opponent will support killing them off until the moment of birth.” Harlow took exception, and told Porter, “leave my children out of this. Let’s leave my child out of this.”
On November 9th the Washington Post reported that Moore had allegedly tried to initiate a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old when he was 32, one of several accusations that Moore tried to pursue teenage girls during his time as a prosecutor in Etowah County, Alabama. Moore dismissed the accusations as “completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democratic party and the Washington Post on this campaign.”