The Washington Post says that a woman approached the newspaper and falsely claimed that Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore impregnated her when she was a teenager — seemingly as part of an undercover operation with a conservative activist.
The woman told the Post in a series of interviews that she had a sexual relationship with Moore in 1992, became pregnant and had an abortion at Moore’s urging when she was 15.
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Post reporters questioned the woman about inconsistencies in her story and found a GoFundMe.com campaign under her name that said the person “had accepted a job to work in the conservative media movement to combat the lies and deceipt [sic] of the liberal MSM.”
The woman also asked reporters if her story would cause Moore to lose the special election.
She repeatedly denied to the Post that she was working with any groups targeting the media.
Post reporters saw the woman entering the New York offices of Project Veritas, a conservative group that uses undercover operations to target the media and left-leaning organizations. Her car was reportedly in the parking lot of the offices for more than an hour.
Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe declined to talk to the Post about the claims.
“I am not doing an interview right now, so I’m not going to say a word,” O’Keefe told the Post.
Shortly after the Post’s story was posted, however, Project Veritas sent out a fundraising email to supporters with the subject line “Our cover is blown!”
“Following months of undercover work within The Washington Post, our investigative journalist within the publication had their cover blown,” O’Keefe wrote in the email.
“This is how undercover work goes. This isn’t the first time that has happened, and it won’t be the last time.”
A spokesman for Moore’s campaign did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for comment.
Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said the newspaper published the off-the-record conversations with the woman because it was “the essence of a scheme to deceive and embarrass us.”
“Because of our customary journalistic rigor, we weren’t fooled, and we can’t honor an ‘off-the-record’ agreement that was solicited in maliciously bad faith,” he said.
The Post’s revelation comes after the newspaper first reported allegations of sexual misconduct by Moore earlier this month, including that he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32.
Since the report, other women have come forward to accuse the Alabama Senate candidate of pursuing relationships with them when they were teenagers, and one has accused Moore of sexually assaulting her when she was 16.
—Updated at 8:52 p.m.