Elders have been removed from the Texas megachurch in the latest fallout from the Trump friend’s sex abuse scandal

ONE Texas megachurch in suburban Dallas has removed several elders after launching an investigation into abuse allegations against Robert Morris, the church’s founder and former adviser to Donald Trump.

Morris resigned from Gateway Church in June after admitting to “inappropriate sexual conduct with a young lady” in the 1980s. His resignation came after Cindy Clemishire said he abused her when she was 12 years old.

Morris was a member of Trump’s faith advisory council, and his church hosted the former president on its Dallas campus in 2020 for a discussion on race relations and the economy. However, Trump’s campaign told New York Times Morris has not been involved in his bid for the White House in 2024.

Now, a law firm hired by Gateway Church to investigate the allegations says it found a group of elders and staff who knew Clemishire was 12 at the time of the abuse she reported, Fox4 reports. Another group knew about the allegations but did not ask questions, the study found.

Clemishire said she told Gateway Church leaders more than once about her abuse, according to Fox4.

When Morris resigned, the Gateway Church Board of Elders said they previously “did not have all the facts about the inappropriate relationship between Morris and the victim, including her age at the time and the length of the abuse.”

Now, the elders in both groups have been released, Fox4 reported. The employees who are part of these groups will now be prevented from getting older.

“We need to be honest with ourselves and recognize that our culture allowed this truth to be buried for too long,” said Gateway Church elder Tra Willbanks, according to Fox4. “At some point in the past, the Gateway culture 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 any cost.”

“You should also know that Gateway Church is currently and fully cooperating with an ongoing criminal investigation, the details of which we cannot share with you at this time,” Willbanks added.

Clemishire, now 52, ​​said Morris and his wife lived in her family’s home when she was 12. She said he asked her to come into his room, where he told her to lie on his bed and began touch her.

She said the abuse continued until 1987, when she told her parents.

In 2007, J Shelby Sharpe, a lawyer for Morris, reportedly claimed that the child was actually at fault.

“It was your client who initiated inappropriate behavior by entering my client’s bedroom and sleeping with him, which my client should not have allowed to happen,” Sharpe wrote in a letter NBC News. Sharpe told the outlet that he did not know at the time that Clemishire was a child during the reported abuse.

In a statement released before his resignation, Morris insisted he had no intercourse with Clemishire.

“When I was in my early twenties, I engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I lived. It was kissing and caressing and not intercourse, but it was wrong,” he said.

The independent has reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment. Gateway Church declined to comment.