{"id":14070,"date":"2025-10-05T03:20:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T03:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/robert-morris-a-former-trump-campaign-spiritual-adviser-pleads-guilty-to-child-sex-abuse\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T03:20:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T03:20:25","slug":"robert-morris-a-former-trump-campaign-spiritual-adviser-pleads-guilty-to-child-sex-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/robert-morris-a-former-trump-campaign-spiritual-adviser-pleads-guilty-to-child-sex-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Morris, a former Trump campaign spiritual adviser, pleads guilty to child sex abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Are Salam<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Former megachurch pastor Robert Morris<\/a>who was once a campaign spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump<\/a>pleaded guilty Thursday to sexually abusing a child.<\/p>\n

Morris, a founding pastor of the Dallas-based Gateway megachurch — one of the country’s largest — was accused<\/a> by an Oklahoma woman, Cindy Clemishire, of sexual abuse in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12 and continuing until the age of 16.<\/p>\n

Morris, 64, pleaded guilty<\/a> in Osage County District Court to five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child. He was given a 10-year suspended sentence but was ordered to serve six months in the Oklahoma county’s jail.<\/p>\n

As part of his plea deal, Morris must register as a sex offender and pay $250,000 in restitution, NBC News reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Justice has finally been served, and the man who manipulated, groomed and abused me as a 12-year-old innocent girl is finally going to be behind bars.<\/p>\n

Cindy Clemishire<\/cite><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“Justice has finally been served, and the man who manipulated, groomed and abused me as a 12-year-old innocent girl is finally going to be behind bars,” Clemishire, who was present in the courtroom, said in a statement. “My hope is that many victims hear my story, and it can help lift their shame and allow them to speak up.”<\/p>\n

Morris <\/a>admitted to some of the allegations against him<\/a> to the Christian Post in 2024 and resigned from the church<\/a> soon after. “When I was in my early 20s, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying,” he said, referring to the child.<\/p>\n

“There is no such thing as consent from a 12-year-old child,” Clemishire told the court<\/a>reading from a prepared victim statement. “We were never in an ‘inappropriate relationship.’ I was not a ‘young lady’ but a child. You committed a crime against me.”<\/p>\n

In 2016, Morris was appointed to Trump’s evangelical advisory board <\/a>during his presidential campaign. At a 2020 roundtable discussion<\/a> with faith leaders in Texas, Trump thanked two pastors, one of whom was Morris, for attending, saying, “They’re great people. Great people with a great reputation. I have to say that. Great reputation. And Gateway Church — the team has been incredible in hosting us.”<\/p>\n

Gateway Church declined to comment to BLN on Friday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Are Salam<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for BLN Digital. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oct. 3, 2025, 6:53 PM EDT By Are Salam Former megachurch pastor Robert Morriswho was once a campaign spiritual adviser to President Donald Trumppleaded guilty Thursday to sexually abusing a child. Morris, a founding pastor of the Dallas-based Gateway megachurch — one of the country’s largest — was accused by an Oklahoma woman, Cindy Clemishire, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}