Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Monday said that he would have a “hard time” working with a colleague that he thinks “molested a child,” referring to allegations against Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore.
Graham on CNN said that if Moore wins the special election on Tuesday, Republicans “can’t deny him” a seat in the Senate, but “the moment he’s seated he becomes a member of the body.”
“The Senate has its own way of dealing with membership in the body,” Graham said. “There’ll be an Ethics Committee investigation, and if the Ethics Committee, in a bipartisan manner, supports the allegations of these women that he in fact is a child molester, then my view is, that’s inconsistent with being a member of the body.”
Numerous women have accused Moore of sexual misconduct, and of pursuing them sexually when they were teenagers and he was in his early 30s. One woman, Leigh Corfman, alleged that Moore initiated a sexual encounter when she was 14 years old, two years below the age of consent in Alabama.
“I’ll have a hard time, quite frankly, keeping somebody in the body that I think molested a child, but we’ll see what happens,” Graham said.
He said that if Moore wins, he “will be the gift that keeps on giving for Democrats.”
“It will define the 2018 election, at least 2018,” Graham said. “To think you can elect Roy Moore without getting the baggage of Roy Moore is pretty naive. I wished he would have stepped aside.”
