By Glynn Wilson –
If President Donald J. Trump is not above the law according to the courts in New York, then former judge Roy Moore should not be excused by the courts in Alabama either, according to attorneys for Leigh Corfman, the Gadsden woman who is suing Moore for defamation.
Former judge Roy Moore speaks at Oak Hollow Farm in Fairhope with one week to go in U.S Senate race, Dec. 5, 2017: Photo by Glynn Wilson
Montgomery Judge Roman Ashley Shaul is being asked by Moore’s attorneys to dismiss the case against the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, who is charged with lying during his unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Doug Jones about knowing and sexually assaulting Ms. Corfman when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney in Etowah County.
Moore has denied the allegations, which surfaced during the campaign and became national news, just as Trump denied allegations from women who accused him of sexual misconduct.
In the case of Summer Zervos v. Donald J. Trump, New York Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Schecter ruled that “no one is above the law” in her decision refusing to dismiss the case against Trump, saying even the president of the United States is not immune to lawsuits for his unofficial acts.
In a new court filing, Ms. Corfman’s lawyers say the New York ruling against Trump provides significant legal support against the argument that the case against Moore should be dismissed.
There are strong parallels between the two cases.
The accusations from the women as the #MeToo movement was in full swing in the press came up amid political campaigns.
In the defamation lawsuit against Trump, Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the NBC reality show “The Apprentice,” accused the former reality TV star of kissing her without her consent in 2007 and groping her as she was pursuing a job with the Trump organization. The allegations surfaced in October 2016, just weeks before Trump was elected president.
After Trump denied the accusations and called her a “liar,” Zervos sued in January 2017. Her attorneys argued that Trump defamed her by denying the allegations, lying about it and calling her and other accusers “liars,” damaging their reputations and careers.
President-elect Donald J. Trump returns to Mobile, Alabama, in last stop on ‘victory tour.’: Glynn Wilson
According to the court filing in Corfman’s case, Moore did the same thing as Trump, describing the allegations as “100 percent false.” Moore described the allegations as “completely false.”
Trump, like Moore, said he had never met his accuser.
Both Trump and Moore have described the allegations as being politically motivated and claimed Democrats were behind them.
Trump, like Moore, said his accuser was seeking attention in making the allegations.
Trump described the charges as a “hoax” while Moore used the phrase “fake news.”
Judge Shaul has not yet ruled on Moore’s motion to dismiss the case. The new filing Wednesday was a supplement to previous objections to the case being dismissed.
“Zervos, like this case, stems from a political candidate’s defamatory statements targeted at a woman who publicly accused the candidate of sexual misconduct,” Ms. Corfman’s attorneys argue. “The Zervos court denied (the president’s) motion to dismiss, which rested on substantially similar facts and the same legal arguments raised by (Ms.Corfman) here. This court should do the same.”
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