The responses from Alabama GOP officials on Roy Moore's alleged sexual encounters are bizarre

AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.

• Several women have alleged that the Republican nominee for Alabama senator, Roy Moore, initiated sexual encounters with them several decades ago when they were underage.
• The responses from Alabaman GOP officials have reportedly ranged from outright denial, to alleging the accusers were operatives from the Democratic Party.

GOP officials from Alabama have been offering startling and occasionally bizarre responses when asked by reporters about the allegations that Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for Alabama senator, had sexual encounters with underaged girls nearly 40 years ago.

Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale contacted numerous GOP officials from the state, many of which either outright denied the claims, or accused the accusers of being Democratic operatives.

"It was 40 years ago," Alabama Marion County GOP chair David Hall reportedly said to Dale. "I really don't see the relevance of it. He was 32. She was supposedly 14. She's not saying that anything happened other than they kissed."

"There's nothing wrong with a 30-year-old single male asking a 19-year-old, a 17-year-old, or a 16-year-old out on a date," Hall continued.

According to The Post report, a woman named Leigh Corfman said that in 1979, Moore, then a 32-year-old district attorney, approached her in an Alabama courtroom and got her number. He later called the 14-year-old and drove her to his house, where, according to the report, he removed her clothes and touched her through her bra and underwear. Corfman also said that, in one interaction, Moore gave her alcohol.

Alabama Bibb County Republican chairman Jerry Pow suggested his support for Moore would not unwaver so long it was for the greater good of the party.

"I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn't want to vote for [Democratic nominee Doug Jones]," Pow said, according to Dale. "I'm not saying I support what he did."

Others took a more combative stance against the accusations.

"It does not really surprise me," Alabama Mobile County GOP chairman John Skipper said. "I think it is a typical Democratic - Democrat - ploy to discredit Judge Moore, a sincere, honest, trustworthy individual."

In one particularly strange instance, Alabama Covington County GOP Chairman William Blocker told Dale that he thought Democrats convinced the women in the report to lie about Moore. When Dale pointed out that Corfman was a Trump supporter, he said that's the "typical background" of someone Democrats would use for such a gambit.

"If they said she was a Hillary supporter, then she'd be more dismissed by the local voters here in the state of Alabama. You'd have to paint her as a Trump supporter to be of any credibility," Blocker said.

Three women other than Corfman were included in The Post's report, who told the newspaper that Moore had pursued relationships with them as teenagers between the ages of 16 and 18. The women said Moore did not engage in sexual conduct with them.

Read some of the GOP officials' comments here: