Birmingham, ALABAMA — The mother of Leigh Corfman, who says that Alabama Senatorial Candidate Roy Moore tried to engage in a sexual encounter with her when she was 14, told Breitbart News that the Washington Post worked to convince her daughter to give an interview about the allegations against Moore.
Speaking by phone to Breitbart News on Saturday, Corfman’s mother, Nancy Wells, 71, further stated that her daughter would not have come forward if it weren’t for The Post reporter’s alleged actions.
Corfman went public with her accusations against Moore in a Washington Post interview published last week in which she alleged that Moore attempted to initiate sexual contact with her in 1979 when she was 14. Three other women between the ages of 16 and 18 claim that when Moore was in his 30s, he attempted to court them or that he dated them. The current age of consent in Alabama is 16.
Moore has strongly denied the accusations. He has questioned the timing of The Post’s story, which was dropped mere weeks before the December 12 election.
Corfman’s mother, Wells, told Breitbart News that reporters for the Washington Post convinced her daughter to give them an interview.
“She did not go to them,” said Wells. “They called her.”
“They tried to convince her to do it?” this reporter asked.
“Yes,” replied Wells, matter-of-factly.
Wells was asked about Corfman’s motivations for going public. “It wasn’t done for politics, you know,” Wells replied. “It was done for personal reasons. And it wouldn’t have been done if the reporters hadn’t contacted my daughter.”
Asked about the timing of The Post interview and why 38 years after the alleged incident her daughter decided to speak out weeks before the election, Wells replied: “She was contacted by the reporter. That’s why.”
Wells comments seem to indicate activist behavior on the part of the Washington Post reporters.
In The Post’s article, the newspaper concedes that it approached the women, but it does not state that it worked to convince any of them to go public. The Post did report that the women were initially reluctant to go public.
The newspaper reported:
Neither Corfman nor any of the other women sought out The Post. 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. 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.
Earlier on Sunday, Breitbart News reported that Corfman’s mother contradicted a key detail of Corfman’s story. Speaking by phone to Breitbart News on Saturday, Wells said that her daughter did not have a phone in her bedroom during the period that Moore is reported to have allegedly called Corfman – purportedly on Corfman’s bedroom phone – to arrange at least one encounter.
The Washington Post cited Corfman as remembering that she provided Moore with her number when she was 14. She said that she spoke to Moore from what she described as the phone in her bedroom.
Corfman, meanwhile, described her own troubled background to The Post, including three divorces, bankruptcies and a history of drug abuse.
The Post related:
She says that her teenage life became increasingly reckless with drinking, drugs, boyfriends, and a suicide attempt when she was 16.
As the years went on, Corfman says, she did not share her story about Moore partly because of the trouble in her life. She has had three divorces and financial problems. While living in Arizona, she and her second husband started a screen-printing business that fell into debt. They filed for bankruptcy protection three times, once in 1991 with $139,689 in unpaid claims brought by the Internal Revenue Service and other creditors, according to court records.
Moore strongly denied Corfman’s claims. “These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign,” Moore said in immediate response to The Post’s story.
Moore’s campaign said in a statement, “This garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation.”
The campaign pointed out that Moore has been married to his wife, Kayla, for nearly 33 years and has four children and five grandchildren. It also noted that Moore has served in public office in the past and that no such allegations were previously made.
The statement said:
The Judge has been a candidate in four hotly-contested statewide political contests, twice as a gubernatorial candidate and twice as a candidate for chief justice. He has been a three-time candidate for local office, and he has been a national figure in two ground-breaking, judicial fights over religious liberty and traditional marriage.
“After over 40 years of public service, if any of these allegations were true, they surely would have been made public long before now,” the statement continued.
On Saturday, Moore further addressed the allegations:
“Now I want to address something that some people have come here to hear about,” Moore said at a local campaign event. “Shortly after becoming the Republican nominee for the United States Senate, the Washington Post began an attack on the Foundation for Moral Law, on my wife, and on me. For weeks, we read about my salary which they distorted, about taxes where they said we were paid money we never got. But we endured that.”
“Later, they came out and endorsed my opponent in this race,” he continued. “Just two days ago, the Washington Post published yet another attack on my character and reputation in a desperate attempt to stop my political campaign for the United States Senate. These attacks about a minor are completely false and untrue about something that happened nearly 40 years ago. But more than being completely false and untrue, they are very hurtful to me personally.”
“I wanted to make it clear to the media present and the people present, I have not provided alcoholic beverages—beer or anything else—to a minor. I have not been guilty of sexual misconduct with anyone,” he declared. “These allegations came only four and a half weeks before the general election on Dec. 12. Why now?”
“For forty years I have been closely scrutinized in the press and the public media. I have had investigations by the attorney general, I’ve had investigations by the judicial inquiry commission on more than one occasion, I’ve had investigations by the court of the judiciary, I’ve been in five statewide campaigns in which they do opposition research—they do investigations, as you can see in every one I’ve ever run—and three county elections and two major controversies over religious liberty and the Ten Commandments and same-sex marriage,” he continued. “I’ve been investigated more than any other person in this country. That grown women would wait forty years to come right before an election to bring charges is absolutely unbelievable.”
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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