Roy Moore’s Campaign Just Held a Bizarre, Self-Contradictory Press Conference

Roy Moore dispatched his campaign chairman, Bill Armistead, and his longtime attorney Philip Jauregui today, with instructions to hold a press conference in Birmingham.

The seven-minute conference was ostensibly to provide answers to the litany of sex-crime allegations against the former judge. It did nothing of the sort.

Jauregui spoke exclusively about the recent allegations by Beverly Young Nelson. He took issue with Nelson’s claim to have not seen or had contact with Moore since the alleged assault, citing the fact that then–circuit judge Roy Moore presided over Nelson’s 1999 divorce hearing and that he signed a related court order.

However, the transcript of Nelson’s statement does not appear to contain a claim that she had never seen Moore again. This is true of the rush transcript from her original press conference as well.

Jaregui then came to the topic of the yearbook, stating that the campaign has retained a handwriting expert but saying that he cannot analyze handwriting in a photo and requires access to the original yearbook.

He then instructed the audience to look at the photos of the yearbook to determine that it is a forgery, something that their “expert” requires physical contact with the yearbook to do.

After this, the campaign decided to drop its bombshell: That the yearbook was signed “D.A.” even though Moore was just the assistant district attorney at the time. Clearly, there’s no way a twice-disbarred former judge who introduces himself as “Judge” would use a title that does not apply to him.

Jauregui went on to state that “D.A.” comes from the initials of Moore’s assistant on the bench in the ’90s, including for the Nelson divorce case, who would stamp them on documents. He urged the audience to look at the “D.A.” stamp and compare it to the “D.A.” on the yearbook signature.

He then immediately demanded again that the original yearbook be released, because handwriting cannot be judged from a photo.

The conference then promptly ended with both Jaregui and Armistead refusing to answer questions and handing out photos of the yearbook page and court order, so that the audience can do what their “expert” claims is not possible.

Apparently, the average person is more competent than the Moore campaign’s professional handwriting expert.

Here are the two documents:

At no point during the press conference did Jaregui or Armistead address the other accusations specifically.