One of the most popular GOP talking points against Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones is that he’ll be too soft on crime, which is laughable since Jones is an actual former district attorney, perhaps best known for having prosecuted two members of the Ku Klux Klan for a decades old church bombing. Whereas Jones spent a good portion if his career putting away dangerous criminals such as child molesters, the irony has not been lost that his Republican opponent Roy Moore is now being accused of preying on underage girls as a 30-something adult man.
To that point, Anna Brittain, a young adult fiction writer and English tutor from Birmingham, Alabama, has come forward with her own story about Jones, and it really puts the stark difference between the two men into perspective. Apparently, about a decade before To Catch a Predator aired, Brittain’s mother worked in the capacity of a “decoy” to help catch pedophiles who would troll AOL chat rooms for teens, and the prosecutor at the time was none other than Doug Jones. Brittain tweeted her story earlier this week, and it is jarring, to say the least, when you consider what Moore has been accused of.
I have a Doug Jones story that is particularly relevant in light of Roy Moore's sexual assault allegations.
(@JohnArchibald you might be interested?)
— Anna Birch – buy I KISSED ALICE in paperback! (@Almost_Anna) December 6, 2017
This is a story about my mom.
Remember the show 'To Catch a Predator?' probably 10 years before that show aired, it was my mom's LIFE.
AOL had a pedophile problem – men would enter chatrooms ISO underage kids/teens and sometimes just do profile searches to seek teens out
— Anna Birch – buy I KISSED ALICE in paperback! (@Almost_Anna) December 6, 2017
My mom, in cooperation with the FBI, would pose as a teenager (usually a teen boy because my sister and I were tweens at the time), set up stings, and then let the law run its course.
It was during this time she met Doug Jones as a prosecutor.
— Anna Birch – buy I KISSED ALICE in paperback! (@Almost_Anna) December 6, 2017
This was my mom's first case.
Doug Jones has been attempting to rid the world of men like Roy Moore for a very, very long time. pic.twitter.com/ycwtqat2Og
— Anna Birch – buy I KISSED ALICE in paperback! (@Almost_Anna) December 6, 2017
Louis Dean Powell was the assistant principal at the most moneyed high school in Birmingham, by the way (Mountain Brook, if you're local).
Men in power are garbage.
— Anna Birch – buy I KISSED ALICE in paperback! (@Almost_Anna) December 6, 2017
Here is what my mom says about @GDouglasJones:
He was honorable, completely disgusted; seeing what they had to see only further drove him to seek judgment for these complete and utter reptiles of men. He was, and is, committed to the safety of children.
— Anna Birch – buy I KISSED ALICE in paperback! (@Almost_Anna) December 6, 2017
DO YOU SEE WHAT I'M SAYING HERE?
Doug Jones prosecuted men like Roy Moore. He put men like him behind bars for a long, long time.
— Anna Birch – buy I KISSED ALICE in paperback! (@Almost_Anna) December 6, 2017
Jones protected our family, too. He did everything he could to keep my mom's identity anonymous — and to keep her from having to testify in the presence of the perpetrator — because he knew it put all of us in danger.
— Anna Birch – buy I KISSED ALICE in paperback! (@Almost_Anna) December 6, 2017
The Alabama Senate special election takes place next Tuesday, December 12 and Moore is currently polling just ahead of his opponent.