'Morally deformed': Conservative slams top evangelist for excusing Trump's 'lawlessness'

Former George W. Bush speechwriter and evangelical conservative Peter Wehner tore into Rev. Franklin Graham, a top evangelist and the son of the late Rev. Billy Graham, for his ongoing allegiance to former President Donald Trump.

Wehner, a frequent critic of the former president and of the far-right evangelical leaders who continue to back him, took to X to specifically call out how Graham is unmoved by all the revelations of Trump's immoral misdeeds, as the Manhattan criminal trial exposes the details of his alleged hush payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to conceal their purported affair from 2016 voters.

"Franklin Graham concedes Trump uses 'locker room' talk but defended him, saying Trump 'doesn’t hide it,'" wrote Wehner. "Graham ignores the sexual assault, adultery, fraud, pathological lies, lawlessness, cruelty/calls to violence, etc. Graham embodies the morally deformed MAGA/evangelical mind."

This sort of dismissal, Wehner added, stands in stark contrast to what Graham said during the eruption of former President Bill Clinton's scandal surrounding sexual relations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

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"The God of the Bible says that what one does in private does matter. Mr. Clinton’s months-long extramarital sexual behavior in the Oval Office now concerns him and the rest of the world, not just his immediate family," Wehner quoted Graham as saying. He added that Graham also said, "The scandal of Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky has forced us to examine the morality of public and private behavior with new intellectual and spiritual vigor."

"That new intellectual and spiritual vigor seems to have waned a bit," said Wehner.

Trump, for his part, continues to deny anything illegal occurred in his payments to his former attorney Michael Cohen, who arranged the hush money, and still does not acknowledge the affair in question happened at all. Cohen, who served time in prison related to his own role in the scheme, has taken the stand this week to testify that Trump planned it all to save his campaign.