Moore defender compares misconduct accusations to stealing a lawn mower

A reporter defending Roy Moore appeared to compare the sexual misconduct allegations against the GOP Senate candidate to stealing a lawnmower.

During a CNN interview on Monday, Brandon Moseley, a reporter at the Alabama Political Reporter, argued that allegations such as the ones being leveled at Moore shouldn’t disqualify the candidate. He noted that the accusation detailed in a recent The Washington Post report, in which a woman claimed Moore made sexual advances on her in 1979 when she was 14 and he was 32, would count as a misdemeanor in Alabama at the time.

“Does that make it OK?” anchor Brooke Baldwin asked.

“No. But again, if, you know, Roy Moore had stolen a lawn mower when he was 21, that’s bad, but that’s not a reason, 50 years later, to all of a sudden, you know, throw him off the ballot or let Mitch McConnell pick the next senator of Alabama,” Moseley said.

“Sexual abuse, stealing a lawn mower,” Baldwin said, jokingly weighing the comparison. “Let’s not even go there.”

Earlier in the interview, Moseley noted that he has known Moore for 20 years and has covered his campaigns.

“I think if this was a serious — if these allegations were out there and they were serious, I probably would have heard them,” he said.

{mosads}”But understanding that most people have not actually met Roy and don’t know him personally, we’re still talking about 38 years ago, we’re talking about something that’s past the statute of limitations.”

When pressed on why he doesn’t think the the allegations are serious, Moseley said they are 38 years old.

“This would be a misdemeanor at the time under the code of Alabama,” he said.

“If you go back and you don’t elect anyone who has ever done anything wrong we wouldn’t have had Barack Obama,” he said. “I think he did cocaine. Bill Clinton supposedly smoked marijuana.”

Baldwin responded by saying the age of consent in Alabama is 16.

“You acknowledge sexual contact with a 14-year-old would have been illegal and would be considered sexual abuse by the books today … You make this argument that there wasn’t a law against sexual abuse in Alabama back in the 70s,” she said.

“Are you saying that because there wouldn’t have been a law, according to you, that that would have made it okay back then?” she asked.

“If Roy Moore committed a sin, that’s a sin and that’s not good, but we’re not talking about an actual crime here under — that’s prosecutable in 2017,” he said.

“I don’t think you throw out 35 years of a man’s career and his reputation because of an unsubstantiated allegation from 1979.”

The reporter’s comments come after The Washington Post’s report published last week led members of the Republican Party to distance themselves from the Senate candidate.

On Monday, another woman came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Moore, accusing him of grabbing her when she was a minor in a restaurant parking lot while she struggled to get away from him.

Moore is facing growing calls from Republicans for him to step aside in the Alabama Senate race. He has denied the allegations and has said he plans to remain in the race.