With few exceptions, Roy Moore’s “defense” against the allegations that he pursued and molested dozens of women and girls over the years has been some variation of “(noun)(verb) FAKE NEWS!” He has bleated and screeted that these allegations are nothing more than an attempt to derail his campaign.
This line is insulting to me on a personal level. As someone who really was falsely accused of inappropriate and criminal behavior with a girl, I know how hard it is to defend yourself against such allegations. What Moore is doing may make it even harder.
As many longtime Kossacks know, when I left my ex-wife 11 years ago, her son made good on threats to beat me up. So I pressed charges of assault—only to have my ex-wife turn around and falsely accuse me of making a girl who was staying with us at the time watch X-rated movies and threatening to beat her up if she told anyone about it. However, they never showed up for court.
This was blatant retaliation—indeed, my lawyer on this case, a former DA, realized this within five minutes. I also knew this was another form of abuse in a three-year ordeal of emotional abuse. But I knew I couldn’t just scream “she abused me!” I actually had to get proof that I was at work when this happened—and that my ex-wife knew I was at work.
As it turned out, they never showed up for court. Apparently they got spooked when I got a lawyer rather than roll over. They no doubt knew that they would be racked up for perjury—and in my ex-wife’s case, subornation of perjury—if they peddled that story in court. But as a result of her outrageous tactics, I had to call into pretrial release every Monday for four months, and essentially had the 2006 holidays taken from me.
Had I taken Moore’s tack and merely screamed, “This is a setup by my wife—and she’s the real abuser!”, I would have lost a lot more than that. That’s why I blew a gasket when it became apparent that Moore’s “defense” against the allegations was merely to scream “FAKE NEWS!” and “witch hunt!” Moore knows damn well that such a defense wouldn’t fly in court. Why is he trying it now?
In the long run, Moore risks making it harder for people who really have been falsely accused to avoid being railroaded. He risks making it appear that their claims of innocence are really denial. He also forces law enforcement to choose between two bad options—continue to spend time and taxpayer dollars to investigate cases that are clearly bogus, or finding out years later that there really was abuse.
Moore talks about protecting the presumption of innocence. But his tactics run the risk of eroding that presumption.