The Washington Post published a bombshell piece Thursday on Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore's sexual predation of four women ranging from 14 to 18 when he was in his 30s. Before the story was even posted, Breitbart News was already slinging arrows at it as a "smear campaign."
Breitbart writers wouldn't know good reporting if it ran over them, so here's a few things to remember as conservatives try to trash a story that could inflict a mortal wound on a candidate they can't even remove from the ballot anymore in Alabama.
1. There’s a pattern: The story is based on four individuals who reportedly don't know each other and gave entirely separate but similar accounts.
Wendy Miller says she was 14 and working as a Santa’s helper at the Gadsden Mall when Moore first approached her, and 16 when he asked her on dates, which her mother forbade. Debbie Wesson Gibson says she was 17 when Moore spoke to her high school civics class and asked her out on the first of several dates that did not progress beyond kissing. Gloria Thacker Deason says she was an 18-year-old cheerleader when Moore began taking her on dates that included bottles of Mateus Rosé wine. The legal drinking age in Alabama was 19.
2. There’s corroboration: The most troubling account, which involves sexual touching with a 14-year-old girl, is backed up by court records and friends of the victim, Leigh Corfman.
Corfman tells a story of first being approached by Moore in 1979 at a court house where she and her mother were waiting for a child custody hearing to commence. Moore offered to wait with Corfman while her mother went inside and later followed up by inviting her out on dates. This account checks out in multiple ways.
Two of Corfman’s childhood friends say she told them at the time that she was seeing an older man, and one says Corfman identified the man as Moore. [...]
Corfman described her story consistently in six interviews with The Post. The Post confirmed that her mother attended a hearing at the courthouse in February 1979 through divorce records. Moore’s office was down the hall from the courtroom.
3. There’s no obvious ulterior motive: There appears to be no political motivation, just personal reasons for finally and reluctantly coming forward with their stories.
None of the women have donated to or worked for Moore’s Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, or his rival in the Republican primary, Luther Strange, according to campaign reports. [...]
[Corfman] says she thought of confronting Moore personally for years, and almost came forward publicly during his first campaign for state Supreme Court in 2000, but decided against it. Her two children were still in school then and she worried about how it would affect them. She also was concerned that her background — three divorces and a messy financial history — might undermine her credibility. [...]
Neither Corfman nor any of the other women sought out The Post. [...]
All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do so after multiple interviews, saying they thought it was important for people to know about their interactions with Moore. The women say they don’t know one another.
“I have prayed over this,” Corfman says, explaining why she decided to tell her story now. “All I know is that I can’t sit back and let this continue, let him continue without the mask being removed.”
4. There’s extensive sourcing: This is a very well-sourced story that was teased out over the course of several weeks by three reporters.
While reporting a story in Alabama about supporters of Moore’s Senate campaign, a Post reporter heard that Moore allegedly had sought relationships with teenage girls. Over the ensuing three weeks, two Post reporters contacted and interviewed the four women. [...]
This account is based on interviews with more than 30 people who said they knew Moore between 1977 and 1982, when he served as an assistant district attorney for Etowah County in northern Alabama, where he grew up.