This MAGA Pastor Is Arguing That "It Doesn’t Matter" If Trump Has Been Accused Of Sexually Assaulting Women In The Past

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A spiritual adviser for President Donald Trump forgave the president’s sexual misconduct ― alleged and otherwise ― in a startling interview with the New Yorker.

Mark Burns, a South Carolina-based pastor, gave his wildly generous take on the president’s troubling history with women to writer Isaac Chotiner, whose reply to one comment spiced up the exchange.

Trump was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll (although the $83 million defamation award he was ordered to pay her is on hold for the time being.) He has been accused of predatory behavior by dozens of women. And he infamously bragged that he was free to grab women “by the pussy.”

Chotiner remarked that, contrary to many other Trump allies, Burns does not appear to deny the sexual misconduct allegations about the president, but assumes that Trump did do those things and that “God works in mysterious ways and can use Trump to lead the country nevertheless.”

“Is that accurate?” Chotiner asked. “Well, I think that it could be said about all of us,” Burns replied. “I mean, Isaac, you have things in your closet that you pray never show up on CNN. There are things that you’ve done that you pray to God never become a New Yorker story.”

“That’s interesting,” Chotiner replied, “but I haven’t grabbed women against their will and bragged about it, or posted a video of the Obamas as apes. So maybe there’s a sliding scale of what people do and how we should judge them?”

“Ultimately, God is our judge, not people,” Burns answered. “And we may have a sliding scale, as you say, in man’s law, because it is true, murder is way more dangerous and carries heavier weights than jaywalking or eating too much. Gluttony is just as much a sin as murder, but in the eyes of man, murder carries way more weight, and it should be handled the way that the word of God says it should be handled.”

“But in the eyes of God, who is our ultimate judge, God is a God of forgiveness,” the pastor continued. “God is a God of love. So, having said that, it doesn’t matter what President Trump has done in his past.”

“It doesn’t matter?” Chotiner asked. “It doesn’t matter in the eyes of the Lord, and apparently, it doesn’t really matter to the eyes of the American voters because they voted for him and made him president twice. Many would argue three times.”

Burns evaded revealing where he stood on Trump’s cornerstone lie about the 2020 election. “What does matter is this: We’re talking about the fact that it doesn’t matter what President Trump has done in his past, as long as he’s repented and asked for forgiveness,” he said. “The president is not grabbing anybody or talking about grabbing anybody from their private parts today.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

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