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Opinion | Roy Moore is back with a new lawsuit, same craziness

Roy Moore speaks to reporters and supporters
Roy Moore is surrounded by supporters and media after leaving the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery, Ala., on Thursday October 27, 2016. (Mickey Welsh/Pool Photo)

The Roy Moore Holy Rolling Carnival and All-Star Grifter Circus popped the tent on a brand new show Monday.

At the Etowah County Courthouse, Moore and his new legal team — led not by the Moores’ “Jew attorney,” but by a female attorney who for years has billed her law firm in TV ads as “divorce attorneys for men” — held a press conference to announce that Moore had filed a defamation lawsuit against the four women who accused him of sexual impropriety during his campaign for U.S. Senate and some guy.

Actually, let me rephrase.

Moore did not file a lawsuit on Monday.

Roy Moore filed a conspiracy theorist’s manifesto dressed up like a lawsuit.

He said as much at his press conference, where he claimed to be the victim of a vast political conspiracy cooked up by the aforementioned Some Guy, who Moore’s team simultaneously labeled the mastermind who cost Moore a sure win in the U.S. Senate special election and a multiple felon with numerous drug-related arrests.

Some Guy is Richard Hagedorn in real life, and he, according to Moore’s lawsuit, is the lynchpin in this conspiracy against Moore, bringing together — with supporting evidence from Facebook posts — the accusers and the Washington Post reporters necessary to upend Moore’s bid to embarrass Alabama on a national stage.

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The complaint from Moore has all the highlights you’d expect: vague allegations of lies, a gay marriage ceremony performed by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, anti-Christian beliefs in the form of not believing Roy Moore and noting that one of his accusers was treated by a psychiatrist once when she was 15.

Honestly, it’s incredibly difficult to choose a coherent, law-based allegation in this complaint filed by the twice former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. There’s no new proof offered that Moore’s accusers were lying about their encounters. At best, Moore’s filing offers blanket denials without the slightest specifics.

Instead, the complaint seems to be more of a narrative, in which Uncle Roy tells you a story about what REALLY happened (wink, wink) in that U.S. Senate race.

And if this lawsuit is to be believed — and let me be clear: you should absolutely not believe this lawsuit — Hagedorn is a Keyser Soze-like tricky fella with an ax to grind against Moore, who 25 years ago held Hagedorn in contempt for failing to pay child support.

Spoiler alert: There are some plot holes.

For example, even if you buy that Hagedorn developed at that moment 25 years ago a red hot hatred for Moore, here’s what else you’d have to believe: that Hagedorn’s brother, a former Washington Post food critic, held so much sway in the newsroom of one of the world’s most respected news publications that he could convince them to investigate Moore and write a detailed, thoroughly researched story on Leigh Corfman’s allegations of molestation by Moore.

And even if you did buy that far-fetched nonsense, so what? You still haven’t disproven a word of the accusers’ allegations.

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One thing is for sure: both the press conference and the lawsuit 100 percent lived up to the standard set by Moore’s campaign for Senate. Which is to say they were completely and utterly bonkers.

But it doesn’t matter. Because the real audience for what occurred on Monday wasn’t the media or sane people. It was Moore’s hardcore base of supporters — the portion of America who are still, time and again, suckered by Bible-waving conmen.

They needed a reason to believe, a reason to send in one more check to help Roy Moore stand up for God and fight off this persecution.

Moore admitted as much on Monday, saying that he would be fundraising to defend himself in Corfman’s defamation lawsuit and to pay the Attorney for Men for this legal atrocity.

And so, here we are, five months after the special election that Moore lost and still refuses to concede, and we’re still playing the same tunes and running the same scams. Some of the faces have changed, the rest stays the same.

And I’m left with just one question: I wonder if Sassy’s doing OK?

 

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Josh Moon is an investigative reporter and featured columnist at the Alabama Political Reporter with years of political reporting experience in Alabama. You can email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter.

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