Former chief justice and current Senate candidate Roy Moore filed suit against two Democratic PACs, their vendors, and the chairman of one of the PACs for defamation, defamation by implication, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and collaborating to create an elaborate disinformation campaign against him in the 2017 special election for U.S. Senate.
In the complaint, Moore outlined his case against the defendants, whom he claims are responsible for spreading and financing scandalous accusations against his character and person, as well as making intimidating advertisements that would be used on digital media platforms. The ads falsely stated that voting records were public knowledge and would be used against individuals voting for Judge Moore instead of his opponent.
Named in the lawsuit are Guy Cecil, chairman of the Super PAC Priorities USA, and former executive director of the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2012 and 2014.
Priorities USA is a super PAC that backed Doug Jones in 2017. It spent in excess of $190 million to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016. Senate Majority PAC, another defendant, spent over $90 million in the same effort.
Both PACs are allied with the Democratic Party. They provided the vast majority of funding for Highway 31, the PAC that defamed Judge Moore in the 2017 election. Highway 31 was cited during the campaign by Secretary of State John H. Merrill for placing false and inaccurate advertising.
The suit also named in the complaint, Bully Pulpit International. Bully Pulpit is one of the largest progressive digital ad agencies in the Country. It was used by the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton presidential campaigns as well as by numerous Democratic House, Senate, and gubernatorial candidates.
Waterfront Strategies, the primary vendor for the Highway 31 Super PAC, was also named in the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims that Waterfront ran defamatory and libelous ads against Judge Moore in the 2017 Senate election.
“It’s past time that those responsible for the false and libelous Highway 31 ads are held accountable for their malicious and intentionally defamatory ‘Mall’ ads against me in the Alabama Special Senate election in 2017,” Moore said in a statement. “This is only the beginning of my effort to put a stop to fraudulent campaign tactics designed to steal elections from the people of our country and, in this case, the people of Alabama.”
This civil action, Moore v. Cecil et al., is filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Moore is represented by attorney Larry Klayman, a well-known national litigator, and by Melissa Isaak, Moore’s personal attorney.
Moore won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2017 but was narrowly defeated in the general election by Sen. Doug Jones. Moore is running for Senate again in next year’s election. The Republican primary will be March 3.
