Roy Moore weighing legal action against women accusing him of harassment

Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore is considering legal action against one or more of the women who have accused him of sexual misconduct, he said Tuesday night.

Moore, the Republican nominee to replace U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the Senate in a Dec. 12 special election, has strongly denied all accusations that he inappropriately approached or accosted woman, some of them who were underage at the time of the alleged incidents.

Asked about some of his accusers in an interview Tuesday night with controversial conservative radio talk show host Scott Beason on Alabama Cable Network, Moore repeated: "I don't know them. I've never spoken to them, and certainly I didn't do anything to them."

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Moore has previously threatened to sue The Washington Post, which first reported the allegations against him, and Alabama Media Group, which publishes The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and the Press-Register of Mobile.

In the interview Tuesday night, he disclosed that he and his advisers were gathering evidence for possible legal action against at least one of his female accusers, as well.

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Asked by Beason, "Do you plan to pursue any legal action with defamation against any of these people — Washington Post or anybody?" Moore responded: "We are. We're talking about The Washington Post. We're talking about the women involved."

Moore wouldn't address the specifics of any potential litigation, saying, "That's for investigators." But he said: "There are things coming out in the future which I can't talk about."

"We're getting proof," he said. "We'll continue to do that."

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Moore repeated that he had never engaged in inappropriate behavior with anybody. But, he said, "you can't disprove a negative."

Moore first came to national prominence for refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building in defiance of a federal court order in 2003, when he was chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

He said Tuesday night that he had been targeted by Democrats and "establishment" Republicans because "I stood for God."

President Donald Trump stopped short of explicitly endorsing Moore in the Dec. 12 election over Democrat Doug Jones. But Trump said of the Republican: "He totally denies it. He says it didn't happen. And, you know, you have to listen to him, also."

The president added: "I can tell you one thing for sure: We don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat, Jones."

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