Washington Post Reporters Denied Entry To Roy Moore's Election Night Party

Reporters for The Washington Post were told they could not enter Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore’s election night party in Montgomery, Alabama.

“We were denied credentials and when our reporters asked to enter they were told no,” the Post’s Kristine Coratti Kelly said in an email.

Lauren Walsh, a reporter with the ABC television affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama, confirmed the news with the Moore campaign. Walsh said the Post reporters were “asked to leave” the rally while journalists for other news outlets were stationed inside awaiting the results of Tuesday’s closely watched special election.

Rosie Gray, a reporter for The Atlantic, said in a tweet that the journalists at the Moore party had been placed “behind a barrier.” She said that in contrast, when Moore won the Republican Senate nomination in a September vote, “reporters could move around freely” at his party at the same locale.

The Post in early November roiled the race with an article detailing bombshell allegations that Moore, 70, sexually preyed upon teenagers when he was in his 30s. One woman accused him of molesting her when she was 14.

Other women came forward with similar accusations, and what was expected to be an easy win for Republicans in GOP-dominated Alabama turned into a fiercely contested face off between Moore and Democrat Doug Jones.

Moore has denied the allegations and said the timing of the Post’s story amounted to a politically motivated attack.

“Ritual defamation has been around for a long time, and that’s what this is,” Moore said last weekend in a television interview. “It’s inconceivable to think that someone would wait 40 years, because they were embarrassed or ashamed or something, and then less than 30 days before the general election, come out and make allegations.”