Excerpts of democracy in america

• Evangelical leaders have expressed outrage after the indictment of former President Donald Trump on Thursday.
• Trump has called the grand jury’s investigation a witch-hunt and a “political persecution,” with some Evangelical leaders agreeing with him.
• Several leaders, including Paula White-Cain, Franklin Graham and Mark Burns, have taken to Twitter to express their disapproval of the indictment.
• Some Christian voters are beginning to abandon their support for Trump as he runs for his third presidential campaign.

Several Evangelical leaders have taken to Twitter to express their outrage at the indictment of former President Donald Trump .

On Thursday, Trump became the first president in U.S. history to face criminal charges after a grand jury in Manhattan indicted him with approximately 30 charges in relation to an alleged hush money payment Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Daniels alleged that in 2006 she had an affair with the former president, which he denies. Trump continues to deny any wrongdoing in the case and is expected to enter a not guilty plea at his arraignment, which could be as soon as next Tuesday.

The former president has called the grand jury’s investigation a witch-hunt and a “political persecution” against him, according to a press release from his 2024 campaign. Meanwhile, some Evangelical leaders agreed with Trump and demeaned the process in their social media outcries.

Evangelist Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, was among the leaders who were appalled at the indictment. Graham called for God’s intervention in the indictment.

“It’s a shameful day for America as former President @realDonaldTrump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury,” Graham tweeted on Friday. “The Democrats have weaponized the legal system for their political gain while ignoring the current Administration’s faults and deficiencies.”

He added: “There’s only One who can save this country, and that is God and God alone. Why should He even hear our prayers when we have turned our back on Him? But I’m going to keep praying that God will intervene and save this nation so we will continue to be that beacon of hope for this very dark world.”

Reverend Nathan Empsall, the executive director of Faithful America—a nonprofit organization composed of Catholics and Protestants and others not affiliated with any church or denomination—told Newsweek on Friday that Graham betrays the Christian faith by supporting Trump.

“Despite his assertion that ‘God alone’ can save, Franklin Graham betrays our shared faith by remaining so hellbent on standing with a corrupt strongman who puts his ego ahead of the people and once blasphemously claimed ‘I alone can fix it,'” Empsall said in an email statement.

Empsall went on to say Good Friday, which is next week, should remind Christians of the “danger that comes when religious leaders abandon justice and the common good to pursue a relationship with those in power—whether that’s with Pontius Pilate or with MAGA Republicans .”

“In this modern day and age, answering Luke’s Gospel’s call to tear down the mighty and lift up the lowly means defending American democracy, demanding that Donald Trump and other authoritarian politicians who abuse their power finally stand trial, and working together to build an inclusive and just country where no one is above the law and all of us benefit from equality, dignity, and accountability—not just a wealthy few,” he added.

Faithful America has frequently spoken out against Trump, and recently launched a petition calling for Trump’s YouTube ban to be reinstated.

Evangelists played an important role in Trump’s presidential election in 2016, however Christian voters are beginning to speak out against the former president. An article published by HuffPost last November referenced several Evangelists and former Trump supporters, some who served as advisers to him during his 2016 campaign, were moving away from the former president because of controversial things he had said.

However, some Evangelists remain steadfast supporters of Trump. Televangelist Paula White-Cain referenced the “weaponization of the judicial system” in a tweet on Thursday.

“Today I am asking for prayer for our nation, President Trump, and his family. All of us—regardless of party—should be appalled by the weaponization of the judicial system against someone they disagree with. (Deuteronomy 16:18-20),” White-Cain wrote.

Evangelical pastor Mark Burns posted a video to his Twitter page on Thursday where he said the indictment would only lead to left, right and independent voters to prefer Trump in the 2024 election.

“They have made a huge mistake,” Burns said in his video.

Christian singer Sean Feucht had a similar stance.

“They are going to wish they never did this to Trump,” he tweeted Thursday night before tweeting again on Friday morning.

“Seriously, what’s next? They will do ANYTHING to stop him,” he tweeted.

Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson followed up on his interview with former Biden family confidante Tony Bobulinski, who shared details of Biden family business dealings a night earlier on Fox News.

Carlson accused the media of suppressing the details of the Hunter Biden scandal to influence an election, which he described as “Soviet-style suppression.”

Transcript as follows:

For many weeks, we’ve been hearing the outlines of a story about Joe Biden, hard to know what to believe in the late stages of a presidential campaign. But now, we know.

We have now heard at length on camera from one of the Biden family’s former business partners. He is a successful businessman, a very successful businessman and a Navy veteran. His name is Tony Bobulinski.

Bobulinski spoke for a full hour last night on the show. He told us — and this is the crux of what he said — how he met two separate times with Joe Biden himself, not just with his son or his brother, but with Joe Biden, the former Vice President, the man now running for President to discuss business deals with the communist government of China.

That’s a very serious claim and whatever your political views, it is hard to dismiss it when Tony Bobulinski makes it, because Bobulinski is an unusually credible witness.

He is not a partisan. He is not seeking money. He is not seeking publicity, just the opposite. He did not want to come on our show.

But when Adam Schiff and the Joe Biden for President Campaign accused Tony Bobulinski of participating in a Russian disinformation effort, he felt he had no choice. That was a slander against him and against his family. So Bobulinski came. He arrived with heaps of evidence to bolster the story he was telling. He brought contemporaneous audio recordings, text messages, emails, many financial documents.

By the end of the hour, it was very clear to us that Tony Bobulinski was telling the truth and that Joe Biden was lying. We believe that any honest person who watched the entire hour would come to the same conclusion.

Well, today a Senate Committee confirmed it. The Senate reported this afternoon that all of Tony Bobulinski’s documents are in fact real. They are authentic. They are not forgeries. This is not Russian disinformation. It is real.

So tonight, we have another recording for you from Tony, Bobulinski and we will add that to the evidence file we will play for you in just a minute. But we can’t help noticing that in a normal country, you probably already would have heard it. Bobulinski told a remarkable story. Joe Biden, who once again could be President of the United States next week, was planning business deals with America’s most formidable global opponent.

And when he was caught doing it, Joe Biden lied, and then he went further. He slandered an innocent man as a traitor to his own country. It is clear that Joe Biden did that. That’s not a partisan talking point uttered in bad faith on behalf of another presidential campaign. It’s true.

So the question is, what is Joe Biden’s excuse for doing that? What is his version of the story? Everyone has a version and we’d like to hear it.

But we don’t know what Joe Biden’s version of the story is, because no one in America’s vast media landscape has pressed Joe Biden to answer the question. Instead, reporters at all levels and their editors and their publishers have openly collaborated with Joe Biden’s political campaign. That is unprecedented. It has never happened in American history.

This morning, the big papers completely ignored what Tony Bobulinski had to say, so do the other television networks. Not a single word about Bobulinski appeared on CNN or anywhere else.

Newsweek decided to cover it, but came to the conclusion that the real story was about QAnon, somehow.

This is Soviet-style suppression of information of a legitimate news story days before an election. The ramifications of it are impossible to imagine. But we do know, the media cannot continue in the way that it has. No one believes the media anymore, and no one should.

You should be offended by this, not because the media are liberal. But because this is an attack on our democracy. You’ve heard that phrase again and again. This is what it actually looks like.

In a self-governing country, voters have a right to know, an obligation to know who they are voting for. In this case, they have the right to know if the Democratic nominee for President is a willing partner in his family’s lucrative influencing peddling operation, an operation that went on for decades and stretched from China and Ukraine, all the way to Oman, Romania, Luxembourg and many other countries.

This is not speculation once again, and it’s not a partisan attack. It’s true, and Tony Bobulinski confirmed it.

Bobulinski met with Joe Biden at a hotel bar in Los Angeles in early May of 2017, and when he did, Joe Biden’s son introduced Bobulinski this way, quote, “Dad, here’s the individual I told you about that’s helping us with the business that we’re working on and the Chinese.”

The man I told you about, Tony Bobulinski. Now, written documents confirmed this is real. At one point, Joe Biden’s son texted Tony Bobulinski to say that Joe Biden, his father was making key decisions about their business deals with China. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: When Hunter Biden said his Chairman, he was talking about his dad.

TONY BOBULINSKI, FORMER BUSINESS AFFILIATE OF HUNTER BIDEN: Correct. And what Hunter is referencing there, as he spoke with his father, and his father is giving an emphatic no to the-ask that I had, which was putting proper governance in place around Oneida Holdings.

CARLSON: So Joe Biden is vetoing your plan for putting stricter governance in the company. I mean — and it’s right here in the emails.

BOBULINSKI: Tucker, I want to be very careful in front of the American people. That is not me writing that. That is not me claiming that. That is Hunter Biden writing on his own phone typing in that I spoke with my Chairman, referencing his father.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Exactly. That is not Tony Bobulinski’s word. It is spelled out in the clearest possible language in documents that Bobulinski provided us and documents that subsequently Federal authorities have authenticated as real.

On May 13, 2017, for example, Hunter Biden got an email explaining how his family would be paid for their deal with a Chinese energy company. His father, Joe Biden, was getting 10 percent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOBULINSKI: In that email, there’s a statement where they go through the equity. Jim Biden is referenced, as you know, 10 percent doesn’t say Biden, it says Jim. And then it has 10 percent for the big guy held by H. I a thousand percent sit here and know that the big guy is referencing Joe Biden. There it’s — that’s crystal clear to me because I lived it. I met with the former Vice President in person multiple times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So that was three years ago, and we still don’t know where all that money went? We don’t know because the media haven’t forced Joe Biden to tell us.

But last night, Tony Bobulinski did add a telling detail. Joe Biden’s brother, Jim saw his stake in the deal double. It went from 10 percent to 20 percent. Was Jim Biden getting his brother’s share?

Again, it might be worth finding out. We also know that according to an email from a top Chinese official, this one written on July 26, 2017, the Chinese proposed a $5 million interest-free loan to the Biden family quote, “Based on their trust in the Biden family.”

The email continued quote, “Should this Chinese company, CEFC keep lending more to the family?” And indeed, CFC was supposed to send another $5 million to the Biden’s business ventures. Apparently, that money never made it to the business. Where did it go? A recent Senate report suggests it went to Hunter Biden directly and from there, who knows? Again, no one has asked.

Tony Bobulinski also told us he learned Hunter Biden became the personal attorney to the chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, just as they were tendering 14 percent of the Russian state-owned energy company. That was a deal valued at $9 billion.

It’s pretty sleazy. It’s pretty amazing, actually, that this happened, and no one noticed.

The bottom line in all of this, and we’re not going to spend the next six months leading you through a maze of complex financial transactions. This isn’t that complicated at its bottom line.

Here’s the bottom line: millions of dollars linked directly to the Communist Party of China went to Joe Biden’s family, not because they are capable businessmen, they are certainly not. His brother, Jimmy Biden’s one business success appears to have been running a nightclub in Delaware. Ultimately, that went under.

No, they were cut in on the world’s most lucrative business deals, massive infrastructure deals in countries around the world for one reason, because Joe Biden was a powerful government official willing to leverage his power on behalf of his family.

Now, if that is not a crime, it is very close to a crime, and it is certainly something every person voting should know about. The Biden’s didn’t do this once, they did it for decades. So the question is, how did they get away with it for so long?

Tony, Bobulinski asked Joe Biden’s brother, Jimmy, that question directly and to his credit, Jimmy Biden answered that question, honestly. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOBULINSKI: And I remember looking at Jim Biden and saying, “How are you guys getting away with this? Like, aren’t you concerned?” And he certainly looked at me and he laughed a little bit and said, “Plausible deniability.”

CARLSON: He said that out loud?

BOBULINSKI: Oh, yes. He said it directly to me one-on-one in a cabana at the Peninsula Hotel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Plausible deniability. In other words, we lie. We get away with selling access to the U.S. government, which we do not own because we lie about what we’re doing. And as we lie, we try to make those lies plausible. That’s why we call it plausible deniability.

That is the answer that Joe Biden’s brother gave when asked directly. So the question is what is Joe Biden’s answer to that question? We wish we knew.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor