Roy Moore’s Jewish Friend is Actually Doug Jones’ Friend

If Roy Moore’s campaign for U.S. Senate hadn’t been marred by credible allegations of child sexual abuse costing him the election, his final rally before losing to Doug Jones could very well be his bid’s most memorable moment. For starters, the story that old war buddy Bill Staehle told about Moore refusing to patronize a brothel filled with child sex slaves would have been more than just a bizarre reaction to the existing narrative. What got the most media attention that night, though, there was his wife Kayla’s bug-eyed attempt at eliciting cheers from the crowd.

“Fake news will tell you that we don’t care for Jews,” she said, responding to the anti-Semitic tone of seemingly pro-Moore robocalls as well of her husband’s invocation of George Soros-centric conspiracy theories. “I tell you all this because I’ve seen it all, so I just want to set the record straight while they’re here: One of our attorneys is a Jew!” From the degree of self-satisfaction present on her face, you can’t really tell if she’s blissfully unaware that she invoked a common stereotype or was really thrilled to have done so. Regardless, it snapped back to hit her in said face on Tuesday.

Kayla Moore was referring to Richard Jaffe, who not only defended her son, Caleb, on drug charges, but also told The Washington Examiner that he’s one of the oldest and dearest friends of Doug Jones. “There could not be a more passionate supporter of Doug than me!” he said, noting his donations and fundraising work for his close friend of over 30 years. Jaffe was also by Jones’ side on the night of the special election right before walked onstage to deliver his acceptance speech.

According to a 2015 AL.com article, Caleb Moore blamed his then-latest drug arrest on “media and crooked police officers and critics of my dad” in a Facebook post. Jaffe then attempted to smooth over the comments as being“said out of deep frustration,” adding that his client “regrets it very much.” More recently, during the Senate campaign, Jaffe had to battle back accusations that Roy Moore used his influence to get Caleb’s charges reduced, pointing to a deal made when the younger Moore went to rehab. “I can tell you with complete certainty that his father had no communications with anybody in the DA’s office,” he told AL.com.