Connor Norton: A woman approached The Post with a dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation.

In the immediate aftermath of the Washington Post's report alleging Roy Moore pursued romantic relations with teenagers half his age, a woman contacted WaPo saying she had more to tell about the Alabama senate candidate; the reporter she turned to began an e-mail correspondence that eventually led to a face-to-face interview where the woman said she had bore a child to Moore while in her teens but had an abortion at his behest. This was a pretty shocking charge, and the news organization took special care to make sure it was factually viable; the Post was already suspicious after the woman continually asked the opinion of the reporter as to how her story would affect the upcoming election. WaPo then continued to find holes in the woman's story, and even (in a background check) found that while she claimed to be working in a nondescript place outside NY, she had two months prior set up a go-fund-me to work as an undercover operative for a conservative anti-mainstream media group called Project Veritas so she could "combat the lies and deceit of the liberal MSM". When this was brought up at the next interview, the woman said she wouldn't bring her story to light after all and made false statements about possible employments and motives, but the real kicker was when the Post witnessed the woman go to Project Veritas HQ and spend over an hour inside. It seems she was part of an attempted sting by the group where an operative creates a fake persona and story and tries to get reporters of big news groups to make opinionated statements, publish unsubstantiated claims, or even offer money for stories; luckily, the WaPo reporter didn't fall for the trap. The original article is pretty crazy reading if you want to see how far the woman went (the story is here: on the Washington Post website under the same title as my current event).

This is kind of wild and questionably legal as the woman in question made multiple false or misleading statements, some of which defamed a public figure and all of which were done with mal intent towards the Post, and (as you can read in the article) she used hidden video and audio recording equipment without the knowledge or consent of any involved parties. This can relate to the period during the Civil Rights movement in which racist southerners disparaged, tried to discredit and sometimes even attacked newspapers that wrote any articles going against the racist ideals and antebellum vision of the whites in power.