Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that Republication Senate candidate Roy Moore will “immediately” face an ethics investigation if he becomes a senator, Axios reported.
Last week, four women told The Washington Post that Moore asked them out on dates when they were teenagers and he was in his early 30s.
One of the women, Leigh Corfman, now 53, said that when she was just 14, Moore took her to his house, undressed her, groped her, and placed her hand on his underwear.
Another accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, said Monday at a news conference that Moore groped her when she was 16 years old and threatened her not to tell anyone.
AL.com also reported that it was “common knowledge” in Gadsden, Alabama, that Moore pursued teenage girls.
Moore and his campaign have denied the allegations.
McConnell is among many Republican lawmakers who have called for Moore to step aside in the wake of the allegations.
"I'd like to save the seat, and it's a heck of a dilemma when you've got a completely unacceptable candidate bearing the label of your party within a month of the election," he said at a Wall Street Journal event.
“Obviously, we’re in a discussion here about how to salvage this seat if possible,” he added, and floated the idea of launching a write-in campaign for an alternative Republican candidate.
According to The Hill, the Senate hasn’t expelled a member since 1862.
McConnell noted that he sat on the Senate's ethics panel when then-Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) resigned in 1995 under the threat of expulsion for “similar behavior” to Moore’s alleged conduct — although none of the accusers in that scandal were underage.
McConnell said if Moore were to become a United States senator, “he would immediately be in a process before the Senate Ethics Committee under which the women would be sworn in, and he would be asked to testify under oath.”
“It would be a rather unusual beginning,” McConnell said.
On Twitter, Moore accused McConnell of “attempting to subvert the will of Alabamians” by “helping to elect a far-left Democrat.”
Moore faces Democrat Doug Jones in the special election on Dec. 12 for the Alabama Senate seat to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
