News

Actions

Roy Moore writes open letter to Sean Hannity after Fox News host’s ultimatum

Posted at 7:15 PM, Nov 15, 2017
and last updated 2017-11-15 21:15:03-05

By Oliver Darcy, CNN Money

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore published an open letter to Sean Hannity on Wednesday night pushing back against allegations of sexual abuse that have placed his campaign at the center of a national firestorm and prompted prominent members of the Republican Party to call on Moore to withdraw from the race.

In the letter, which came one night after Hannity said he would give Moore 24 hours to explain inconsistencies in how he has addressed the allegations before calling on him to step aside in the race, Moore suggested he was the victim of a political hit job.

“I am suffering the same treatment other Republicans have had to endure,” Moore wrote Hannity.

Moore faces accusations from multiple women that he pursued sexual relationships with them — and in one case engaged in sexual assault — while they were between 14 and 18 years old and he was in his mid-30s.

Moore denied dating underage girls, but only specifically addressed allegations from two of the women. He said “at the direction of counsel” he “cannot comment further.”

Moore said in his letter to Hannity that he was “in the process of investigating” what he characterized as “false allegations.”

On his program Tuesday night, Hannity demanded an explanation for a signature in a yearbook that appeared to have come from Moore. Despite Beverly Young Nelson  one of the woman who accused him of sexual misconduct — producing an old yearbook she said bore his signature, the embattled Senate candidate claimed he did not even know her.

“My signature on the order of dismissal in the divorce case was annotated with the letters ‘D.A.,’ representing the initials of my court assistant,” Moore wrote Hannity. “Curiously the supposed yearbook inscription is also followed by the same initials—’D.A.’ But at that time I was Deputy District Attorney, not district attorney.”

Moore added that he believed the “initials as well as the date under the signature block and the printed name of the restaurant are written in a style inconsistent with the rest of the yearbook inscription.”

It’s unclear if Moore’s letter will be enough to keep Hannity’s support. The Fox News host is expected to address his backing of Moore on his Wednesday night television program.

The full letter is available in the Facebook post embedded below: