(CNN) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is privately telling colleagues Tuesday he will not back off of an ethics investigation if Republican Roy Moore is elected.
McConnell has been discussing the Alabama Senate race in recent days with incumbent Alabama Sen. Luther Strange, who lost to Moore in the state’s special primary runoff in September.
A source familiar with their conversations says McConnell told Strange late last week that he still believes there will be a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into the allegations against Moore if he is elected, adding that he will not back off of calling for one.
Senate Republicans plan to convene a meeting Wednesday morning to discuss their next steps if Moore wins the race, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The issue was discussed at a closed-door lunch meeting Tuesday among GOP senators, two attendees said.
Republican leaders in the Senate have not yet decided how to handle Moore or whether to allow him to serve on committees.
In November, McConnell called on Moore to step aside in the race after a number of women accused him of pursuing relations when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s, including one who says he touched her inappropriately when she was 14 and another who says he sexually assaulted her when she was 16. McConnell said he believed the women and that Republicans were exploring whether someone could still successfully mount a write-in campaign against the Democrat in the race, Doug Jones.
However, many believed the Kentucky senator had appeared to change his tone on whether Moore should be in the Senate when he later said he would “let the people of Alabama make the call.”
“I think we’re going to let the people of Alabama decide a week from Tuesday who they want to send to the Senate, and then we’ll address the matter appropriately,” McConnell said on recent episode of ABC’s “This Week.”
McConnell insisted he had not had a change of heart regarding Moore’s candidacy.
“I had hoped earlier that he would withdraw as a candidate, and obviously it’s not going to happen,” McConnell said. “If he were to be elected, he would immediately have an ethics committee case, and the committee would take a look at the situation and give us advice.”
Alabama’s special election votes will have to be certified over the next few weeks before the winner can take the oath of office. Strange will remain in the seat until the new senator is sworn into office.
McConnell reiterated that timeline to reporters Tuesday, saying, “Sen. Strange is going to be here through the end of this session.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2017 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
