Earlier this month, The Washington Post published Leigh Corfman’s accusations of sexual assault against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore when she was only 14 and he was in his 30s. After that, more women came forward with their own stories.
Corfman made her first media appearance on the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and explained that she wanted to confront Moore on many occasions. But she decided to go public after WaPo found out about her story and contacted her.
Corfman said that she would only tell WaPo her story “if they found additional people.” They found those people and she spoke:
“I didn’t go looking for this, this fell in my lap. It literally fell in my life, and I had to make a decision,” she said.
She also said that she has not received any payment or gifts for her story:
“If anything, this has cost me,” she said, explaining she’s had to take a leave of absence from her job. “I have no tickets to Tahiti and my bank account has not flourished. If anything it has gone down because currently I’m not working.”
Corfman retold the story of what happened to her:
Corfman said Moore first approached her outside an Alabama courthouse as she was waiting for her mother inside. He asked for her phone number and later arranged to meet her pick her up and he took her back to his house.“I wouldn’t exactly call it a date. I would say it was a meet. At 14 I was not dating. At 14, I was not able to make those kind of choices,” she said.Corfman said the second time she went to Moore’s house, he laid out blankets on his living room floor and “proceeded to, um, seduce me, I guess you would say.” He removed most of her clothing, left the room and then returned wearing only in his “white underwear.”“He touched me over my clothing, what was left of it, and he tried to get me to touch him as well,” she recalled.Corfman said she pulled back, frightened, and had Moore take her back home.“I was a 14-year-old child trying to playing in an adult’s world, and he was 32 years old,” she said.
She kept her composure as she explained to critics that accused her of not saying anything before. She did tell people. First she told her friends and eventually told her parents. She wanted to confront Moore, “but feared the repercussions against her and her family.”
Moore has denied all the accusations against him and refuses to step aside. The special election is on December 12 and Republican Governor Kay Ivey said it will go on as scheduled. Ivey has also said she will still vote for Moore, even though she believes the women, to keep the GOP majority in the senate.
Many Republicans across the nation have called on Moore to step aside if the allegations are true. President Donald Trump finds the allegations “troubling,” but wants the people of Alabama to determine his fate. Trump agreed with the National Republican Senate Committee when it decided to “withdraw its support for Moore’s campaign.”
Professor Jacobson explained that if Moore wins, the Senate could expel him if it invokes Article I, Section 5, clause 2, of the Constitution:
Republican politicians fall into two categories: Moore should step down if the allegations “are true,” and Moore should step down regardless of whether the accusations are true because the accusations are serious. The seriousness of accusations, rather than the evidence of the seriousness of accusations, seems like an unsound basis to overrule the will of the voters.If enough evidence accumulates, and if Moore does win the election, the Senate has wide discretion in expelling members. Article I, Section 5, clause 2, provides that: “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.” The Senate could hold proceedings in which testimony and other evidence is gathered, and could reach a determination.
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