Steve Bannon And Allies Have Second Thoughts About Roy Moore, Sources Say
amp.thedailybeast.com/steve-bannon-and-allies-have-second-thoughts-about-roy-moore-sources-say
[...]But over the past few days, Bannon has begun privately taking the temperature of those in his inner circle to see what they think of the Moore allegations and to get their sense of how to proceed, according to four knowledgeable sources. Late last week, the Breitbart chairman said, “I will put him in a grave myself,” if he determines that Moore was lying to him about the numerous accusations, a source close to Bannon relayed.
Bannon emphasized, to both friends and colleagues, that he’s uncomfortable with the charges of sexual harassment and child molestation that have been levelled at Moore. But he wasn’t convinced that the initial flood of on-record testimony, starting with the first Washington Post story last week, was anything more than a hit job. And he believes it may have been planted by #NeverTrump operatives to put the screws to Moore’s campaign.
Several of Bannon’s most trusted allies have already told him that it would be “insane,” as one put it, to believe at this point that the Moore accusations are baseless. They have also warned that the time is rapidly approaching when he would have to disavow Moore before it appeared as though he was simply caving to political pressure. (Critics of Bannon, of course, argue he should never have backed Moore in the first place.)
It is unclear if those points have completely resonated. Bannon is currently in Japan, where he went to deliver a speech. He is scheduled to fly back at the end of the week.
For Bannon, the stakes are far higher than one Senate seat. He and his allies saw Moore’s candidacy as a referendum on the Republican establishment, which went all-in for Moore’s primary opponent, Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL), and is now threatening to remove Moore if he prevails. In particular, Bannon believes that a Moore win would be a stinging defeat for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who he and others at Breitbart fault for stalling Trump’s legislative agenda and for the longer-term corrosion of ideological purity in the Republican Party. As the website’s editor in chief Alex Marlow told Politico on Tuesday, the Alabama senate contest “represents so much beyond one race.”