Trigger warning: discussion of sexual abuse
Most of us are still reeling from Ann Selzer revealing that Kamala Harris is potentially about to flip Iowa back to the Democratic fold. After all, no one on either side thought Iowa was even on the board. But a slightly less massive earthquake hit just before that poll dropped. A former spiritual adviser to Donald Trump is now one of the apparent targets of a criminal investigation after it emerged that several former leaders of the church he founded helped him cover up his grooming and abuse of a teenage girl four decades earlier.
In case you missed it, back in June, Robert Morris, pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake—near Fort Worth—was cut down to size when a four-decade-old lie came to light. From 1982 to 1987, he groomed and molested a then 12-year-old Oklahoma girl, Cindy Clemishire, but insisted it was only a “moral failure” with a “young lady.” In the face of criticism from all sides, Morris resigned. Now, it turns out that authorities at least suspect that the cover-up of his lies and deceit may have amounted to criminal conduct.
Watch more coverage from Metroplex CBS outlet KTVT here.
For most of the summer and fall, Tra Willbanks, a member of Gateway’s board of elders, has served as a spokesman for the board, delivering updates on what the church was doing to recover in the wake of Morris’ resignation. At Saturday night’s service, Wilbanks revealed that an independent internal investigation by the law firm Haynes & Boone revealed the cover-up was made possible by flaws in Gateway’s culture.
"We must be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that our culture allowed this truth to be buried for too long," said Tra Willbanks, an elder at Gateway Church.
Willbanks called it a "massive governance and accountability failure."
"When a church becomes centered around one pastor alone, it's lost its way," Willbanks said. "And unfortunately, we have come to the realization over the last several months that at some point in the past, the culture at Gateway became one where power was centralized and the leader at the top was surrounded by people who wanted to protect him, some of them at all costs."
The real bombshell came later on. Willbanks revealed that there were very big reasons why they couldn’t share more details—legal ones, including a very active criminal investigation.
Willbanks said he couldn't release additional details because of a continuing criminal investigation and ongoing litigation against Gateway Church, including what he said were financial demands from Robert Morris.
"But I can share that neither the church nor its current leadership are subjects of this criminal investigation," Willbanks said.
Willbanks’ full remarks on Saturday night were originally available on Gateway’s video channels, but were deleted after an online outcry when he told members to report claims of abuse to the elders. According to victim advocate Amy Smith, a Metroplex resident. this is as far from good practice as you can get. However, Smith managed to get a copy of the video before it was deleted.
However, Willbanks apparently corrected that oversight at today’s service; watch here. His remarks began at the 17:15 mark. Willbanks was a member of a three-member subcommittee of the elder board that received the results of the Haynes & Boone investigation. He shared “a summary of the facts” unearthed by the investigation.
He reiterated what most of us who have followed this story already knew—for years, Morris claimed he had been unfaithful to his wife, Debbie, in his early 20s. Supposedly, he confessed his “sin” to “apostolic leaders” at his then-church, Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie (now a Gateway campus), and stood down from ministry for two years before being “restored” with the “blessing of these same apostolic leaders.” Willbanks said that he and many others believed Morris’ version for years.
However, Cindy revealed on June 14 that she was the one referred to in the story Morris had told for years. She added that she was not a consenting adult, but a girl who had been the victim of sexual abuse stretching over four-and-a-half years starting when she was 12 years old. According to Willbanks, within hours of Cindy going public in Wartburg Watch, Morris directed church staffers to craft a statement minimizing his crimes in what Willbanks described as “one final attempt to hide the truth.” Within 48 hours, members of the current board of elders were able to verify enough “critical elements” of Cindy’s account that showed Morris had indeed been lying all along. Rather than accept a demand from the elders to meet with them, Morris resigned.
Based on 650 gigabytes of data—including reams of emails and other communications—Haynes & Boone discovered that there were a number of elders and staffers who had known Cindy was not merely a “young lady,” and had known for some time before she went public. There were also other elders and staffers who knew about the allegations and should have asked questions—and didn’t. Willbanks said that those in either category had engaged in conduct that “is simply wrong and cannot be tolerated at Gateway Church.” Based on that information, anyone in those two categories who was still employed at Gateway in 2024 has been “removed.” He didn’t elaborate, but victim advocate “Justice for Cindy Clemishire” revealed that according to her sources, at least four members of Gateway’s pastoral staff were either fired or resigned rather than face certain termination.
Willbanks also added that many people wanted more details, but stated that Morris has made “financial demands” on Gateway that the church has no intention of accepting. He also disclosed the ongoing criminal investigation, though he stated neither the church nor any current staffers are targets—an indication that Morris is the major focus, along with the ousted staffers. He did state that the internal investigation found no evidence of further abuse on Morris’ part.
Earlier, Willbanks issued a full and unreserved apology to Cindy, and stated that sexual assault would not be tolerated at Gateway. He also urged anyone who had been the victim of abuse or knew about it to report it to law enforcement first, then confidentially email the elders.
But there’s good reason to be skeptical. In July, the head of Gateway’s prison ministry was exposed as a child sex offender—and Gateway was been evasive at best on whether its members knew. Smith was alarmed too, believing it made Willbanks’ original advice all the more outrageous.
All of this has this left-leaning charismatic Christian convinced beyond doubt that it’s not a coincidence Morris is facing a long-overdue reckoning for his misdeeds. After all, he helped bully evangelicals into knuckling under to Trump. Now he’s one of three high-profile generals in the Trumpvangelical Army who are finding out—bigly. Before Morris was exposed as a child predator, Mike Bickle was dumped from the International House of Prayer after he himself was exposed as a serial sexual abuser and child predator. And this fall, Rick Joyner is facing calls for his resignation after his church in Fort Mill, South Carolina—near my birthplace of Charlotte—was sued for covering up sexual assault by a church staffer.
The religious right maintained that Trump would expose the corruption of the left. Instead, the corruption of their own leaders has been put on full display. And in at least two cases, and possibly three, said leaders have been cut down to size.
