More than two decades after Cindy Clemishire alleges she was sexually assaulted by Robert Morris, starting when she was just 12 years old, the Gateway Church pastor asked her an alarming question aimed at keeping her quiet.
“Put a price on it,” Morris said on Sept. 22, 2005, according to a phone call transcript obtained by NBC News through a former Gateway staffer.
When Clemishire responded that it was “not a small number,” Morris pushed back after noting that money did not make her happy and he could understand that.
“Two million dollars,” Clemishire responded before Morris ended the call, the transcript states.
But the shocking phone conversation—which came after emails between Clemishire and Morris in which she asked for compensation over her trauma—did not lead to the downfall of the Texas megachurch pastor who would go on to serve as former President Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser. That would take nearly another two decades—when Clemishire finally publicly told a church watchdog site earlier this month about the sexual abuse she allegedly endured at the hands of Morris in the 1980s.
Clemishire told The Wartburg Watch that the........