Pastor Robert Morris of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, confesses to ‘inappropriate sexual behavior’
Robert Morris, a former Trump adviser, made the statement after Cindy Clemishire said the megachurch pastor in Southlake, Texas, abused her in the 1980s.
Pastor Robert Morris, a Texas megachurch pastor who served as a spiritual adviser to former President Donald Trump, has confessed to a “moral failure” four decades ago after a woman accused him of repeatedly molesting her as a child.
The woman, Cindy Clemishire, told NBC News that Morris, now a senior pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, was staying with her family on Christmas night in 1982. She was 12; he was 21. Clemishire, now 54, said he invited her to his room, where he instructed her to lie on her back. He then touched her breasts and felt under her panties, Clemishire said — the first of several similar encounters that would span the next 4½ years, she said.
“Never tell anyone about this,” Clemishire recalled him saying. “It will ruin everything.”
Cindy Clemishire at age 12 with her older sister.Courtesy Cindy ClemishireClemishire’s accusations were made public Friday on The Wartburg Watch, a website focused on exposing stories of abuse in churches. Responding to questions about Clemishire’s account, Morris acknowledged Saturday in a statement to The Christian Post, an evangelical news site, what he called “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” when he was in his 20s.
“It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong,” Morris said in the statement. The same written statement was sent to Gateway Church employees Friday within hours of Clemishire’s story being published in The Wartburg Watch, according to a copy of the message reviewed by NBC News.
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