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Football star in crucial US Senate race rocked by abortion scandal

Herschel Walker abortion scandal
Source: Video Screenshot

Former US football star Herschel Walker, a Republican candidate for the Senate and a vocal abortion opponent, was facing allegations Tuesday that he paid for his then-girlfriend to terminate her pregnancy in 2009.

The candidate, running in one of the most closely-watched races of the US midterm elections and backed by Donald Trump, has dismissed the bombshell accusation by The Daily Beast as a “lie” and has vowed to sue the website.

The Beast reported on Monday that the woman has a receipt for the abortion and an image of a $700 personal check Walker sent her five days after the procedure, as well as the “Get Well” card it came in.

Walker — who has backed a national 15-week ban on abortion, and makes no exceptions for rape, incest and risks to the life of the mother — suggested Democrats had planted the story as part of a dirty tricks campaign.

The 60-year-old, a running back for several teams including the Dallas Cowboys over a 12-year NFL career, said he “never asked anyone to get an abortion.”

“I never paid for an abortion, it’s a lie,” he told Fox News.

Asked about the check, Walker said: “I send money to a lot of people.”

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates Walker’s race against Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock as a toss-up, making it one of the Republicans’ top targets for winning back control of the Senate on November 8.

Walker — already facing scandals over past domestic abuse and an exaggerated resume — has been forced to acknowledge during the campaign that he had three children outside of marriage.

– ‘Dirty laundry’ –

His son Christian responded to the latest allegation in a series of tweets accusing his father of lying and making a “mockery” of the family.

“You’re not a ‘family man.’ Every family member of Herschel Walker asked him not to run for office, because we all knew (some of) his past. Every single one,” the 23-year-old TikTok influencer said.

“He decided to give us the middle finger and air out all of his dirty laundry.”

It is the kind of scandal that has sunk campaigns for office in the less trenchantly partisan pre-Trump political era.

But the former president himself demonstrated the steadfastness of the modern Republican base when he won the 2016 election despite a tape emerging late in the campaign of Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women.

“Herschel Walker is being slandered and maligned by the Fake News Media and obviously, the Democrats,” Trump said in a statement.

He accused Walker’s opponents of trying to destroy a man with “true greatness in his future” and urged Georgians to vote for him in November.

The Senate Republican leadership also rallied quickly behind Walker, saying they would “stand with him.”

“When the Democrats are losing, as they are right now, they lie and cheat and smear their opponents. That’s what’s happening right now,” said National Republican Senate Committee chairman Rick Scott.

“They know they are on the verge of losing the Senate, and they know that Herschel Walker is winning, so they have cranked up the smear machine.”

In fact, Warnock has a small lead, within the margin of error, having beaten Walker in four of the six major polls conducted in September for the Georgia race — one of the tightest in the country.

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AFP

Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.







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