Fox News host Sean Hannity said Wednesday night that Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore answered the questions he posed to him the previous night about the sexual misconduct allegations he is facing.
“Now we demanded, rightly, answers from Judge Moore,” Hannity said on his show. “He provided them to the specific questions we asked.”
Hannity on Tuesday said he would give Moore “24 hours” to provide evidence that he did not engage in sexual misconduct with teenage girls, or he should step aside from the race.
{mosads}Moore then penned an open letter to Hannity on Wednesday, in which he denied several of the allegations against him and argued they are politically charged. Shortly before Moore’s campaign emailed the open letter to reporters, two women in a story published by AL.com described their own encounters with Moore. One woman said in 1991 Moore groped her despite being married, while another said the former judge asked her out when she was 17.
The Washington Post in a story published just after 8 p.m. Wednesday detailed accounts from two more women who said Moore made unwanted advances toward them.
Hannity during his Wednesday night show said “we got the answers” and that he trusts the Alabama voters to “make the best decision for their state” once they have all the facts.
“And I am very confident that when everything comes out, they will make the best decision for their state,” Hannity said.
“It shouldn’t be decided by me, by people on television, by Mitch McConnell, Washington, talk show hosts, news people,” he added, referencing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has said he believes Moore’s accusers and that the former judge should “step aside.”
The accusations were first revealed in a story last week by The Washington Post, which included an account from one woman who said in 1979 that Moore initiated a sexual encounter with her when she was 14. Moore, who has denied this accusation, would have been 32 at the time.
The original story in the Post also included three women who described Moore making advances toward them during the same time period, when they were between 16 and 18 years old.
And earlier this week another woman came forward to accuse Moore of sexually assaulting her when she was 16.
Moore in an interview with Hannity last week admitted that during that point in his life, he may have dated girls in their later teens, but that he did not “remember anything like that.”