Report: Roy Moore Failed To Disclose Up To $150K Of Income On Ethics Form

Late update: Brett Doster, a spokesman for Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore, told TPM by email that a report that Moore failed to disclose as much as $150,000 in a filing with the Senate Ethics Committee was “another misleading attack” on Moore and his wife.

Doster told TPM that a form filed by the nonprofit Moore ran before he became a state judge was a “manipulated document” and that liabilities he disclosed “on his Alabama ethics filing were not required to be disclosed on his U.S. Senate filing.”

“Any perceived discrepancy in the reporting of honoraria on the form Judge Moore filed with the U.S. Senate will be corrected swiftly by the filing of an amendment,” Doster told TPM.

Original story below:

Controversial Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore failed to disclose as much as $150,000 in a filing with the Senate Ethics Committee, the Daily Beast reported on Thursday.

The Daily Beast reported, citing Moore’s filings this April with the Alabama Ethics Commission for 2016, that he listed between $50,000 and $150,000 of income under the category of honoraria he received for “speaking.”

In a Senate disclosure form Moore filed in June, however, the Daily Beast reported that he specifically denied receiving any payments in 2016 “for an article, speech, or appearance.”

Moore also listed between $150,000 and $250,000 in debt to a credit union or savings and loan institution in his Alabama filing, but omitted it from his Senate filing, according to the report.

The Daily Beast also noted discrepancies between a 2014 report Moore filed with the Alabama Ethics Commission, where he reported that his wife Kayla Moore earned $65,000 a year as the president of the Foundation for Moral Law, which was not reflected in the foundation’s tax filing.

Moore in 2005 said homosexual activity should be illegal and compared it to bestiality. In 2006 he said Muslims should be barred from serving in Congress. Earlier this year he suggested the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks happened because America turned away from God. Moore has nevertheless been welcomed by Republicans with open, if euphemistic and evasive, arms.

Read Moore’s campaign’s full statement below:

This is another misleading attack on Judge Moore and his wife. First, the 990 Form, as reported in the Daily Beast story, is a manipulated document. Second, the liabilities Judge Moore disclosed on his Alabama ethics filing were not required to be disclosed on his U.S. Senate filing, which does not require Senate candidates to disclose mortgages on their personal residences. Third, all of the Moore Family’s income and liabilities for 2016 were fully disclosed to the State of Alabama Ethics Commission and the Internal Revenue Service by McGriff Dowdy & Associates, a professional accounting service. Any perceived discrepancy in the reporting of honoraria on the form Judge Moore filed with the U.S. Senate will be corrected swiftly by the filing of an amendment, as provided in Chapter 5 (p. 127) of the Senate Ethics Manual.