Washington Post exposes apparent sting by fake Moore accuser
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Over the course of two weeks, a woman named Jaime Phillips met for several interviews with the Washington Post during which she falsely alleged that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore had a sexual relationship with her in 1992 and that she had an abortion at 15, the Post reports. The story was fake, and, while she told it, Phillips repeatedly asked Post reporters how her claims would impact Moore's bid for the Senate if made public.
The fallout: When the Post confronted Phillips about inconsistencies in her story, she "insisted that she was not working with any organization that targets journalists." But Post reporters saw her walking into the New York offices of Project Veritas — a group that goes after mainstream media by feeding reporters fake stories to expose, as the organization calls it, media bias.
The Post confronted Phillips. Here's how it happened:
- She said "she met Moore in 1992, the year he became a county judge. She said she was 15. She said they started a "secret" sexual relationship."
- "She said that she got pregnant, that Moore talked her into an abortion, and that he drove her to Mississippi to get it."
- "Phillips also repeatedly asked the reporter to guarantee her that Moore would lose the election if she came forward."
- "Alice Crites, a Post researcher who was looking into Phillips's background, found the document that strongly reinforced the reporters' suspicions ... It was on the website GoFundMe.com under the name Jaime Phillips. 'I'm moving to New York!' the May 29 appeal said. 'I've accepted a job to work in the conservative media movement to combat the lies and deceipt of the liberal MSM...'"
- "'Um, yeah, I was looking to take a job last summer in New York, but it fell through,' Phillips said. 'Yeah, it was going to be with the Daily Caller, but it ended up falling through, so I wasn't able to do it.'"
- Paul Conner, executive editor of the Daily Caller, told the Post: "None of us has interviewed a woman by the name Jaime Phillips."
Worth noting: Earlier in November, an Alabama pastor received a voicemail from someone posing as a Washington Post reporter and offering money in exchange for damaging information about Roy Moore.
Go deeper: The full story from the Washington Post (with video)
