Did a girl Say the Washington Post Offered Her $1,000 to Accuse Roy Moore of Sexual Abuse?

A conspirative computing device shared a story primarily based entirely on unsourced tweets claiming the venerable newspaper paid off sources.

On ten November 2017, the disreputable  computing device GatewayPundit.com reported  — with none proof whatever on the far side one anonymous Twitter account — that inquiring journalists from the Washington Post had paid a girl to travel on the record and accuse Roy Moore,
a Republican candidate running to fill professional person General Jeff Sessions’ vacant U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, of sexually abusing her once she was fourteen years previous.

Leigh Corfman told the Post that she was fourteen and Moore was a 32-year-old assistant prosecuting officer once they met. Corfman same Moore picked her up round the corner from her home and took her to his residence, wherever he undressed and ill-treated her. 3 different ladies conjointly went on the record and same Moore had created advances towards them once they were between the ages of sixteen and eighteen and he was in his thirties. once the Post story poor, a fifth girl, Beverly Young Viscount Nelson, came forward and same Moore had tried to rape her once she was sixteen.

GatewayPundit.com reported  (in an editorial bearing the oddly-worded headline “Report: Alabama girl Claims newsman Offered Her $1000s to Accuse Roy Moore of Sexual Abuse?”) that:

    A Navy veteran World Health Organization served twenty two years for his country then served within the United States intelligence agency claims a family friend World Health Organization lives in Alabama told his married woman that a Washington Post newsman “named Beth” approached her and offered her THOUSANDS to accuse decide Roy Moore of inappropriate sexual advances!

 in fact this can be Brobdingnagian news if true.

Indeed it'd be huge news — apart from the inconvenient indisputable fact that it absolutely was not true and therefore wasn't “HUGE.”

While the Washington Post‘s story was primarily based upon interviews with no fewer than thirty sources, the sole supply cited by GatewayPundit.com was hearsay from a questionable Twitter account bearing the handle @umpire43, that belonged to somebody going by the handle “Doug Lewis #MAGA” World Health Organization claimed (again, with no sources offered aside from the imprecise “a friend of my wife’s”) that :

    A family friend World Health Organization lives in Alabama simply told my married woman that a WAPO newsman named letter offered her 1000$ to accuse Roy Moore????

In follow-up tweets, “Doug” declared the a family friend (purportedly named “Jean”, however in fact with no family name provided) recorded the speech communication during which “Beth” (probably Washington Post journalist letter Reinhard, World Health Organization co-wrote the Moore report) offered a supply cash to accuse Moore of sexual improprieties. The tape of that speech communication was purportedly turned over to enforcement, in keeping with “Doug.”

We contacted the Washington Post to raise whether or not there was any chance the reporters on their story had paid their sources and received a flat denial from spokesperson mollie Gannon Conway:

    The accusation against the Post is flatly false. we've got an exact policy that prohibits paying sources.

We known as the Etowah County district attorney’s workplace to see whether or not any such allegations had been delivered to their attention, however as of however we tend to haven’t received a response.

Notably, however, the inculpative tweets from the “Doug Lewis #MAGA” were deleted, and then, some hours later, the complete account was deleted furthermore.

The @umpire43 account was launched in 2011, and as of Martinmas 2017 it had tweeted seventeen,000 messages to eighteen,300 followers. On thirteen November 2017, the account was briefly set to personal, and once it absolutely was created public once more, its owner had deleted most fifty posts — as well as those claiming that girls had been paid off to accuse Moore.

As Washington Post political newsman Dave Weigel determined, the account’s owner had hassle keeping key facts concerning even his own history straight: