AP Photo/Brynn Anderson
Former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore waits to speak at a news conference, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017, in Birmingham, Ala.
- A women says she found a handwritten graduation card from Roy Moore that she says proves the two dated when she was 17 and he was 34.
- Debbie Wesson Gibson says she was incensed by Moore denying that he knew any of the women who have accused him of various levels of sexual misconduct they say happened when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.
- The accusations have unsettled the Republican's campaign for an open Senate seat in Alabama over the last month.
A woman who says she openly dated Roy Moore when she was 17 and he was 34 says she found new evidence that she says proves they had a relationship in the 1980s.
Debbie Wesson Gibson told The Washington Post she was content to stay silent after she initially acknowledged the relationship, and even after several women began to accuse Moore of pursuing them sexually when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.
The women, at least one of whom said Moore made a sexual advance toward her when she was 14, have accused him of various levels sexual misconduct. The allegations have unsettled Moore's campaign as the Republican nominee for an open Senate seat in Alabama.
Gibson told The Post that once Moore began to publicly deny that he knew any of the women who have accused him of misconduct, she decided to go public with the handwritten graduation card she says he signed in 1981: "Happy graduation Debbie. I wanted to give you this card myself. I know you'll be a success in anything you do. Roy," the card reads, according to Gibson.
Gibson told The Post she was incensed by Moore's increasingly vehement assertions that he did not know any of the women accusing him of misconduct. "It changed my perspective," she told the newspaper, "I knew he was a liar."
In an interview with Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity last month, Moore said that he remembered Gibson and another one of his accusers, named Gloria Thacker Deason, but said he had no memory of others who had come forward at that time. In late November, Moore changed his tune, declaring he did not know any of the women.
Since the allegations against Moore first surfaced, several high-profile Republicans and the party's national fundraising arm withdrew their support. Moore responded by heightening his rebukes of his accusers. President Donald Trump endorsed Moore on Monday.