Stephen Bannon, the head of Breitbart News, said that allegations against GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore are, at their core, an attempt to “destroy” the former Alabama Supreme Court justice’s life.
In an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, Bannon said that the allegations that Moore pursued sexual or romantic relations with teenage girls while he was in his 30s went beyond politics, and were intended to ruin the candidate.
“This is deeper than politics — it’s about trying to destroy a man’s life,” Bannon told Bloomberg.
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“This is nothing less than the politics of personal destruction,” he added. “And they need to destroy him by any means necessary.”
Moore has faced a wave of backlash since Thursday, when The Washington Post published an explosive report detailing allegations that Moore sought romantic relationships with four teenage girls when he was in his early 30s.
One of the accusers, Leigh Corfman, told the Post that Moore initiated a sexual encounter with her in 1979, when she was just 14 years old. He was 32 at the time.
Moore, now 70, has forcefully denied Corfman’s allegation. In an interview on Sean Hannity’s radio program on Friday, the Alabama Republican did not deny that he dated girls in their late teens when he was in his 30s, but said he does not remember doing so.
Bannon, who served as President Trump’s chief strategist until August, is backing Moore in Alabama’s special Senate election on Dec. 12.
Minutes before The Washington Post published its report on the allegations against Moore, Breitbart posted an article refuting the claims.
Since leaving the White House, Bannon has started to recruit insurgent GOP candidates across the country, and has called for the ouster of establishment Republicans in Washington, who he says have not supported Trump’s agenda.
After the allegations against Moore surfaced on Thursday, numerous Republican lawmakers have called for him to step aside in the Senate race if the allegations are true and have sought to distance themselves from his campaign.