Moore’s Rebuke of His Accuser and Other Distortions in Alabama’s Senate Race

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WASHINGTON — At a Friday night rally, President Trump urged supporters to vote for Roy S. Moore, the Republican candidate in an Alabama Senate race who has been accused of sexual misconduct.

“How many are people here from the great state of Alabama?” Mr. Trump asked at the rally in Pensacola, Fla., about a half-hour drive from the Alabama border. “Did you see what happened today, you know, the yearbook?”

He was referring to a high school yearbook that one of Mr. Moore’s accusers said he signed in 1977. Whether that happened is only one of the disputes over the facts in a Senate campaign filled with inaccurate claims. As the election on Tuesday approaches, here’s an assessment.

Moore misleadingly criticized an accuser.

Beverly Young Nelson told reporters last month that Mr. Moore had sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager after her shift had ended at the Olde Hickory House, a now-defunct restaurant in Gadsden, Ala. She presented a yearbook that she said had been signed by Mr. Moore.

On Friday, Mr. Moore shared a Breitbart News article on his Facebook page with the headline: “Bombshell: Roy Moore Accuser Beverly Nelson Admits She Forged Yearbook.” On Twitter, Mr. Moore said Ms. Nelson had been accused of lying by her then-boyfriend, her stepson and employees and customers of the restaurant. “Now she herself admits to lying,” he wrote.

These claims are not entirely accurate. Ms. Nelson, in a Friday interview with ABC News, said Mr. Moore had signed the yearbook and she added notes detailing the date and location. She did not admit to forging his signature.

Breitbart has reported that neither Ms. Nelson’s stepson nor a man who says he dated Ms. Nelson in high school believes her claims. Those who say they worked at the restaurant or otherwise frequented it have offered differing accounts on whether Mr. Moore was a regular customer.

But Mr. Moore has contradicted himself on whether he knew his other accusers. He first told Sean Hannity last month that he remembered Debbie Wesson Gibson and Gloria Thacker Deason, but he has recently claimed at campaign stops that “I do not know any of these women.”

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Moore claimed, without evidence, that Planned Parenthood has given his opponent ‘MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.’

Planned Parenthood’s clinics cannot give money to political candidates, and its fund-raising groups are banned from directly donating more than $5,000 to a candidate in an election. Though Planned Parenthood fund-raising groups have donated to other Democratic Senate campaigns, filings to the Federal Election Commission do not reveal contributions to Doug Jones, Mr. Moore’s Democratic rival.

Planned Parenthood has not endorsed Mr. Jones, either. However, its “super PAC,” Planned Parenthood Votes, commissioned a poll in November surveying how views on abortion factored into the Alabama race.

Mr. Jones has received support in the form of independent expenditures (for example, television ads) worth millions from outside groups. Again, Planned Parenthood is not among them, but they do include the political action committees of a steel union, a civil-rights group and a new group called Highway 31, which has not publicly disclosed its donors.

Moore’s spokesman misleadingly charged Jones with supporting abortion ‘up until the moment of birth.’

Mr. Jones does support abortion rights but Janet Porter, a spokeswoman for Mr. Moore’s campaign, misrepresented his position in a CNN interview this week.

In its landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court legalized abortion up until the fetus is viable or can survive outside the womb, or after that point to protect the health and life of the mother. About a third of states let doctors determine viability, and half limit abortion to a specific time frame. In Alabama, that point is 22 weeks of gestation.

Only 1.3 percent of abortions in the United States occur past the first 21 weeks, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research center that supports abortion rights. The situation that Ms. Porter described — an abortion performed just before or on the due date — does not exist.

“When a woman is near her due date and has a medical condition that requires ending the pregnancy, the treatment is delivery of the baby,” said Dr. Daniel Grossman, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.

Mr. Jones, in an MSNBC appearance on Sept. 27, was asked whether he would oppose legislation banning abortion after 20 weeks. (At the time, the House was considering such a bill.)

“I’m not in favor of anything that is going to infringe on a woman’s right and her freedom to choose,” he responded.

Mr. Jones clarified his position days later in an interview with AL.com: “The law for decades has been that late-term procedures are generally restricted except in the case of medical necessity. That’s what I support. I don’t see any changes in that. It is a personal decision.”

Jones misleadingly suggested that Moore does not believe women should hold political office.

In a December ad, Mr. Jones’s campaign wrote: “Roy Moore co-authored a legal course instructing students that women should not be allowed to run for office. Moore’s course taught that the Bible forbids women from holding elected office and Christians shouldn’t vote for women.”

In 2011, Mr. Moore helped write “Law and Government: An Introductory Study Course,” a textbook published by an evangelical Christian organization, according to Think Progress, a left-leaning website. A section of the book contains arguments against women running for office, but it was not personally written Mr. Moore, as the ad suggested.

“She’s not a warrior. She’s not a judge. She’s a woman. Created by God. Glorious in her place and in her conduct and in her role,” wrote the author of that section, who was identified by Think Progress by William O. Einwechter. “Nothing is said in Scripture that supports the notion that she is qualified or called to be a civil magistrate.”

Mr. Moore’s contributions to the legal course appear to be limited to a lecture detailing the fight over his display of the Ten Commandments in his courthouse. His campaign has denied that he ever voiced opposition to women holding office.