TN conservatives send money to Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore

Tennessee conservatives have been providing financial support to Republican Roy Moore in his campaign against Democrat Doug Jones, reports the Nashville Post after a review of Federal Election Commission filings. That includes a political action committee calling itself “Drain the DC Swamp,” which last week spent $10,000 on direct mail advertising.

The group is registered at the Nashville office of attorney Judson Phillips, a conservative activist and the founder of the group Tea Party Nation.

“The PAC, as you might guess by the name, is supporting insurgent candidates and issues in 2018,” Phillips told the Post. He confirmed that the group’s donors — “some friends of mine” — are local but did not respond to additional questions about their identities.

Prominent Middle Tennessee conservatives have not been shy about their support for Moore. Lee Beaman, the Nashville auto dealer, contributed $2,700 — the maximum allowed per campaign — to Moore just three days after the Washington Post broke the story alleging sexual misconduct by Moore.

A.J. McCall, president of regional furniture store chain D.T. McCall & Sons, and his wife, Beth, contributed a combined $5,400 to Moore before the allegations were made public. But when reached by the Nashville Post after the Washington Post story broke, A.J. McCall stood by Moore.

“Given that the [Washington] Post is a thoroughly and completely discredited source of communist drivel, and that the timing alone is dispositive of the untruthful nature of this garbage, it is obvious this is nothing more than a desperate coup attempt perpetrated by the McConnell, Bush, and McCain wing of the Republican party aiming to discredit conservatives and dispirit their challenges to establishment candidates nationwide,” he told the Nashville Post.