On Tuesday, Sean Hannity, who had been an emphatic supporter of the
Senate candidate Roy Moore, gave the embattled Republican twenty-four
hours to explain the allegations of sexual molestation and misconduct
made against him by an increasing number of women in Alabama. Several
women allege that Moore touched, pursued, or even assaulted them when he
was an assistant district attorney in his early thirties and they were
much younger—in one case, as young as fourteen. Moore allegedly
approached some of these women at the mall in Gadsden, Alabama, where
his behavior troubled many local
residents.

“You must immediately and fully come up with a satisfactory explanation
for your inconsistencies that I just showed,” Hannity said on his Fox News show. Hannity seemed
particularly concerned about Moore’s fifth accuser, Beverly Young
Nelson. When Nelson made her allegations public, on Tuesday, appearing
at a press conference alongside her lawyer, Gloria
Allred,
she brought along an old high-school yearbook of hers that appeared to
have Moore’s signature below a personal note. It read, “To a sweeter
more beautiful girl, I could not say, ‘Merry Christmas.’ ” This yearbook
note was intended to help corroborate Nelson’s claim that she and Moore
knew each other, a claim that Moore has denied.

On Wednesday evening, Moore released an open
letter in response to Hannity. It began by seeking sympathy. “I am suffering,”
he wrote. Moore then attempted to cast doubt on the “false allegations”
against him in a few different ways. Regarding Nelson, Moore referenced
the accuser’s divorce, for which he was the presiding judge. Nelson,
Moore wrote, “was party to a divorce action before me in Etowah County
Circuit Court in 1999. No motion was made for me to recuse.” Moore went
on to wonder at the notion that this “apparently caused her no distress
at a time that was 18 years closer to the alleged assault,” while now,
“talking before the cameras about the supposed assault, she seemingly
could not contain her emotions.”

This morning, I corresponded with a prominent Alabama attorney who
reviewed the filings in Nelson’s 1999 divorce case. Based on those
filings, the attorney insisted, Moore’s claims in the open letter are
“completely disingenuous.” Nelson, this attorney told me, “was never
before Moore,” since the divorce was not litigated. Rather, as court
documents show, the divorce was filed, continued, and then dismissed.
“These are all unilateral actions by the lawyer for the plaintiff,” the
attorney went on. “A lawyer for the other side never even appeared. It
is doubtful that these documents were even given to Nelson.” In any
case, the attorney told me, Moore, whose signature is only on the motion
for dismissal—not the original filing or motion to continue—had no
actual discretion over the case.

“When an agreed motion to dismiss is filed, Moore would have no
discretion and have to sign,” the attorney continued. “Most likely, he
never even looked at the parties’ names and Beverly had a different last
name by then anyway.” The attorney concluded, “Moore’s lawyer’s
statement that Beverly Nelson was before Moore in court and never
objected to this circumstance was a lie.”

As ThinkProgress noted earlier today, the claim that Moore made in his statement was reiterated by his attorneys on Wednesday evening. “As it turns out, in 1999, Ms. Nelson filed a divorce action against her then-husband, Mr. Harris,” the lawyer Phillip Jauregui said at a press conference. “Guess who that case was before? It was filed in Etowah County, and the judge assigned was Roy S. Moore, circuit judge of Etowah County. There was contact.” ThinkProgress reviewed the case file, and concluded that there was no contact.

Nelson’s divorce attorney, Rodney Ward, still practices in Gadsden. He
concurred with this attorney’s analysis of Nelson’s divorce case. “I
reviewed my file, and there was no hearing set in front of Judge Moore,”
Ward told me this morning. “Looking at a copy of the order, it looks
like Moore didn’t sign it. It looks like it was stamped by his
assistant.” Had Beverly Nelson known who the presiding judge was, Ward
went on, “my client would have filed a motion to have the judge recuse
himself, to have a different judge appointed. So I don’t even think she
knew who the judge was. It was only, like, sixty days from the time the
divorce was filed to the time it was dismissed. Maybe ninety.” Ward
concluded, “If Moore is claiming that she appeared in front of him, I do
not believe that’s true.”

Hannity, meanwhile, seemed satisfied with Moore’s letter. “We demanded, rightly, answers from Judge Moore,” Hannity said Wednesday on his show. “He provided them to the specific questions that we asked.” He went on, “I lived in Alabama. I enjoyed my time in Alabama. And I know these people. They’re smart. They’re great Americans. God, family, faith, country. And I am very confident that when everything comes out, they’ll make the best decision for their state.” The Alabama Republican Party also announced its decision to stand behind Moore. “Judge Moore has vehemently denied the allegations made against him,” Terry Lathan, the state Party chairwoman, said in a statement. “He deserves to be presumed innocent of the accusations unless proven otherwise. He will continue to take his case straight to the people of Alabama.”