The Washington Post says it was targeted by a woman trying to plant a fake Roy Moore story

The Washington Post headquarters.
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

After The Washington Post published the accounts of several women who accused Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct when he was in his early 30s and they were in their teens, a Post reporter was approached by a woman who falsely claimed Moore impregnated her when she was 15 and drove her to Mississippi for an abortion, the newspaper reported Monday.

The woman, who said her name is Jaime T. Phillips, was spotted by Post reporters on Monday morning entering the Mamaroneck, New York, offices of Project Veritas, a group that tries to discredit the mainstream media and left-leaning organizations using deceptive tactics. Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe refused to talk about Phillips with the Post reporters or tell them if he is working with the Moore campaign or any Republican strategists.

The Post says Phillips first contacted reporter Beth Reinhard, who co-wrote the initial story about Moore's accusers (several other women have since come forward with additional allegations). Phillips claimed that in 1992, she had a sexual relationship with Moore, which culminated in her becoming pregnant and having an abortion. The Post says she kept asking the reporters she spoke with if they thought her claims would ruin Moore's candidacy, and seemed concerned when Reinhard said her story would have to be fact-checked. Reinhard found several inconsistencies in Phillips' story, and a fact checker discovered a GoFundMe page for a Jaime Phillips asking for money so she could move to New York and start a job "in the conservative media movement to combat the lies and deceipt [sic] of the liberal MSM." For more on Phillips' response to the holes in her story and the Post's reaction to being targeted, visit The Washington Post.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.