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ATLANTA — U.S. Senate hopeful Herschel Walker, a Republican who has endorsed a “total ban” on abortion, condemned a report Monday that he paid his then-girlfriend in 2009 to have an abortion.
The former University of Georgia and Dallas Cowboys football star called the Daily Beast report a “flat-out lie” and labeled the accusations “disgusting, gutter politics” as he threatened to take legal action against the publication.
“I’m not taking this anymore,” Walker said in a tweet, adding that he’s “planning to sue the Daily Beast for this defamatory lie. It will be filed tomorrow morning.”
The Daily Beast reported that the woman, who asked the outlet not to be identified because of privacy concerns, became pregnant with Walker’s child in 2009. The outlet reported that Walker, who wasn’t married at the time, urged her to get an abortion and reimbursed her for the procedure.
The Daily Beast reported that the woman provided a copy of a signed $700 personal check from Walker, a “get well” card sent to the woman by Walker and a $575 receipt from the abortion clinic. The outlet published a photo of the “get well” card, which it said included Walker’s signature.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has not verified the Daily Beast’s report. The Daily Beast said that it independently corroborated details of the woman’s claims with a close friend she told at the time and who also took care of her in the days after the procedure.
In a statement late Monday after Walker threatened a lawsuit, the Daily Beast said late Monday: “We stand by the story 100 percent.”
Asked about the claims following a campaign event Monday in Dunwoody, Walker’s Democratic opponent, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, stressed his own support of abortion rights.
“I’ll let the pundits decide how they think it will impact the race,” Warnock said of the story. “But I have been consistent in my view that a patient’s room is too narrow and cramped for space for a woman and the government. My view on that has not changed.”
Walker opposes abortion including in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at stake. His campaign said he supports a proposal by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham that would ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks.
Representatives at The Daily Beast did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Walker, also a former U.S. Olympic bobsledder, was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and won the Republican primary for the Senate seat in May.
After weeks of slipping in the polls and struggling to raise money, the rookie Republican political candidate recently was on the rise in the race against Warnock, who also is the pastor of Atlanta’s iconic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.
The race has outsized national importance because it will help determine control of the Senate, which pundits currently consider likely to remain under razor-thin control of Democrats.
Georgia is considered a battleground state after Biden beat Trump there in 2020, despite possibly illegal attempts by the Republican and supporters to interfere in the 2020 general election there. Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., who is not up for reelection, won their seats last year, becoming the first Democrats in decades to win statewide office in the state.
More than $270 million has been spent or reserved for TV and radio ads ahead of the November election, smashing state records for political spending during a midterm.