Saraho Wasko / Media Matters
The Gateway Pundit, a far-right blog that regularly traffics in false claims, continues to sink to new lows in an effort to defend embattled Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore. The blog is now claiming that the body language of a woman who accused Moore of attempted rape was fake and thus she was lying about him.
Moore has come under intense pressure following a November 9 Washington Post report that multiple women say he engaged in sexual conduct with them when they were teenagers, including Leigh Corfman, who was 14 at the time. On November 13, another women, Beverly Young Nelson, reported that Moore tried to rape her when she was 16. She also shared a signature from Moore in her yearbook from that year.
The next day, The Gateway Pundit published a piece, headlined “‘This is Fake!’: Body Language Expert Says Judge Moore Accuser Was ‘Acting…Not a Real Victim.’” The article cited a “body language expert” named “Bombard” who analyzed Nelson’s “facial expressions and vocal discrepancies” in a clip on YouTube and concluded that she “conveyed signs of deception" and was “'acting.'” In the clip, “Bombard” says that Nelson had suspicious “eye movement” -- because she looked down while speaking -- and was engaged in “rehearsed verbal communication.” This analysis is self-evidently ridiculous because Nelson was apparently reading from a pre-prepared statement, which is a common practice at press conferences.
Jerome Corsi of conspiracy theory outlet Infowars, pro-Trump radio host Bill Mitchell, conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, and right-wing radio host Wayne Dupree all subsequently promoted the Gateway Pundit article or YouTube clip. Far-right friendly One America News Network also reported on supposed body language experts questioning the testimony, seemingly referencing the same clip. Multiple fake news websites picked up the claim as well, lauding the YouTube video for “expos[ing] the truth” about Nelson and showing that she was “lying,” as did Reddit’s “r/The_Donald,” a message board that has previously helped push conspiracy theories.
This isn’t the first conspiracy theory Gateway Pundit has pushed in order to “go full truther on the Moore accusations,” as noted by The Hill’s Will Sommer. The blog also cited a random and now-discredited Twitter account claiming that a “family friend” told the account owner’s wife that “a WAPO reporter named Beth offered her 1000$ to accuse Roy Moore.” One America News Network also pushed the claim, and Roy Moore’s wife, Kayla Moore, posted it on her Facebook page. The blog also tried to discredit Nelson by citing an unreliable Twitter account in order to claim that the signature Nelson had from Moore was forged (a claim Kayla Moore also posted on Facebook and One America News pushed as well). Moore’s attorney Trenton Garmon, speaking on MSNBC, also seemed to allude to the Gateway Pundit conspiracy theory, saying he had an “expert that is going to confirm” that the signature was a forgery.
Gateway Pundit is a far-right-connected blog that has a history of regularly pushing misinformation. Nevertheless, it was granted White House press credentials in February, though it was denied a request for a congressional press pass, which it has appealed. In October, the blog cited 4chan’s “politically incorrect” (/pol/) message board to accuse the wrong man of carrying out the Las Vegas mass shooting -- and that is just one of the several times the site has blamed the wrong person for killings. In May, it hyped forged documents uploaded onto 4chan alleging that then-French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was evading taxes. And in January, the site falsely accused a Washington Post reporter of taking photos of now-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s personal notes at his confirmation hearing, spurring online harassment. Despite Gateway Pundit’s checkered history, both President Donald Trump and his favorite morning show, Fox & Friends, have cited the blog.
UPDATE: During a press conference on November 15, Moore’s attorney demanded that Nelson allow a handwriting expert to review the signature in her yearbook, seeming to support Gateway Pundit’s conspiracy theory that it was a forgery.