A4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, MAY 23 , 2022
total disaster.” He pumped
$2.64 million from his political
action committee into efforts to
unseat Kemp, far more than the
former president has spent on any
other race.
“It’s not easy to beat a sitting
governor,” Trump said in an inter-
view last week with The Post. “I’m
the one who got that guy elected. I
endorsed him, and he won. He’s
not good on election integrity, and
he did a terrible job on election
integrity. We’ll see what happens.”
Trump added that he’s heard
Perdue is “surging,” though recent
polls do not reflect a change in the
race.
Perdue has told local media
that he does not believe the out-
side support has helped Kemp.
“The RINOs march a parade into
Georgia to, in my opinion, circle
the wagons around a very embat-
tled, weak governor,” Perdue said
to WSB-TV, a local station. He was
using a disparaging acronym for
“Republicans In Name Only.”
Weeks ago, as it appeared in-
creasingly likely that Perdue was
going to lose, Trump began dis-
tancing himself from the candi-
date, deciding against doing an-
other in-person rally and com-
plaining to advisers that Perdue
was not working hard in the race,
according to people familiar with
the situation, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity to de-
scribe private conversations.
Trump is slated to hold a tele-rally
with Perdue on Monday evening.
Such a posture was striking,
the people familiar with the mat-
ter said, since Trump had to talk
Perdue into getting in the race all
along — after Perdue privately
pinned blame on Trump for de-
pressing GOP turnout in the Jan-
uary 2021 Senate runoff with his
fraud claims.
On Friday, Trump tried to quell
the notion that he has given up on
Perdue, posting on his social me-
dia platform that it’s a “phony
narrative” and adding “I am with
David all the way.”
The Republicans backing
Kemp have in recent days sought
to frame the race as a potentially
brutal political setback for
Trump. “It’s clearly the most im-
portant race for Donald Trump in
the country. He’s made Brian
Kemp public enemy No. 1,” Chris-
tie said. “We have to decide if we
want to be the ‘party of me’ or the
‘party of us.’ And that’s what a lot
of these primaries are going to
decide.”
In open defiance to the party’s
de facto leader, a string of old
guard Republicans, including
three sitting governors, former
president George W. Bush and
Pence, have rallied around Kemp,
as they try to create a barrier to
protect conservative governors
from what they view as Trump’s
whims.
A recent Fox News poll found
60 percent of Republican voters
backed Kemp, putting him 32 per-
centage points ahead of Perdue.
To avoid a runoff, Georgia candi-
dates need to win a majority of thehasn’t been to date.”
The gambit is set to culminate
Tuesday in Georgia, where Re-
publican Gov. Brian Kemp is
heavily favored to defeat former
senator David Perdue in a closely
watched primary. Trump recruit-
ed Perdue and made him his mar-
quee candidate in a larger crusade
against GOP officeholders who
opposed his fight to overturn the
2020 election, which was rooted
in false claims about fraud.
The RGA invested some $5 mil-
lion in Georgia, according to a
person familiar with the group’s
outlays, who like others spoke on
the condition of anonymity to
describe sensitive details. A pa-
rade of Republican governors and
luminaries have lined up to pro-
tect Kemp. And former vice presi-
dent Mike Pence, who once served
as governor of Indiana, will ap-
pear with Kemp on Monday —
setting the stage for Pence’s most
direct confrontation yet against
Trump in the midterms.
The influx of RGA money in
Georgia, according to strategists
on both sides of the governor’s
race, has dealt a devastating blow
to Perdue, who has struggled to
raise funds to compete.
“This is just not the best use of
our money. We would much rath-
er use it just in races against
Democrats,” said former New Jer-
sey governor Chris Christie, who
is the co-chair of a 2022 fundrais-
ing arm for the RGA and de-
scribed the November meeting in
Phoenix to The Post. “But it was
made necessary because Donald
Trump decided on the vendetta
tour this year and so we need to
make sure we protect these folks
who are the objects of his ven-
geance.”
The clash has brought into fo-
cus an extraordinary battle over
the future direction of the GOP
that extends well beyond Georgia.
On one side is an aggrieved for-
mer president who retains wide-
spread loyalty from the party’s
voters. On the other, conservative
governors who align with Trump
on many issues but have grown
tired of his stolen election claims,
which post-election audits have
shown to be false.
And the latter has already had
success.
Trump’s endorsed candidate
lost badly in Idaho’s gubernatori-
al primary, where the RGA backed
Gov. Brad Little, and the former
president backed away from early
rumblings that he might chal-
lenge incumbent governors in
Ohio and Alabama. In Nebraska,
the political machine of outgoing
Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts
helped sink Trump’s choice for
governor in an open race, who
had been accused of sexually as-
saulting multiple women.
Angry that Kemp refused to
help him overturn the election
results in a key battleground
state, Trump set out to topple him.
He called him “a turncoat,” a
“coward” and “a complete and
KEMP FROM A
Old guard in GOP rallies
to protect incumbents
that same campaign this year,
he’d be in a different place,” said
Seth Weathers, a longtime Geor-
gia Republican strategist and ini-
tial state director for Trump’s
campaign in 2016. “Instead, it’s
been a boring Trump video over
and over again.”
In addition to Trump’s endorse-
ment, former Alaska Republican
governor Sarah Palin and far-
right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
(R-Ga.) have appeared at cam-
paign stops with Perdue where
they promote debunked election
conspiracy theories.
“That position of governor is so
very important when we talk
about election integrity,” Palin
said in a brief stop Friday after-
noon at Savannah-Hilton Head
International Airport where Per-
due also appeared. Palin said that
she has spoken with Trump sev-
eral times in the past week and
that the two “talked about elec-
tion integrity.”
“Trump’s like, ‘Can you imagine
if all of us are in position at the
same time, what it is that we’d be
able to accomplish,’ ” Palin re-
counted.
Ducey, the Arizona governor,
said that Kemp’s strong relations
with other governors and the fact
that he’s defeated Abrams before
meant there was “never a mo-
ment of hesitation” in getting in
the race.
“If Brian Kemp gets over the
finish line in the fashion that I
believe is possible,” he said, “It
speaks volumes to the good peo-
ple of Georgia.”Brown reported from Watkinsville, Ga.
Isaac Stanley-Becker contributed to
this report.ty” over 2020 and warning that he
cannot defeat likely Democratic
gubernatorial nominee Stacey
Abrams in the fall. His campaign
ads feature Trump. “The Demo-
crats walked all over Brian Kemp,”
Trump says in one spot. Trump
then turns to Perdue, whom he
calls “smart” and “tough.”
In another, Perdue speaks to
the camera and says: “Kemp
caved before the election, and the
country is paying the price today.”
Even with the cash infusion
from Trump, Georgia political ob-
servers said there’s little evidence
that the campaign is doing much
with the funds.
“I’m on the biggest radio sta-
tion in the state of Georgia. I
haven’t heard an ad in weeks on
the radio station. I’m not seeing
his TV stuff,” said Erick Erickson,
a prominent conservative radio
host in Georgia who is backing
Kemp. “By all accounts, it looks
like the Perdue campaign has just
totally given up.”
Erickson said that listeners call
into the show to complain that
Kemp didn’t do more in the 2020
election for Trump. “But they say
they’re still voting for Kemp.” He
said that multiple Kemp volun-
teers had door-knocked in his
suburban Atlanta neighborhood
but that not a single one from
Perdue’s campaign had showed
up.
Republican strategists in the
state said Perdue’s campaign
hasn’t been as strong as his previ-
ous ones and is overly reliant on
Trump’s endorsement — and the
false claims of electoral fraud.
“In 2014 he ran the ultimate
outsider’s campaign — Trump be-
fore there was Trump. If he ranwho is also an RGA co-chair. “And
we didn’t waver when Major
League Baseball pulled the All-
Star Game when we passed the
strongest elections integrity act in
the country. Because we had seen
the mechanical issues with the
2020 election that frustrated me
and it frustrated a lot of other
people.”
“I think he did what was right
around the election, and more
importantly, I believe he’s been a
true conservative on all the things
conservatives care about. It’s not
like Brian is somebody who the
president would call a RINO,” said
Pence’s longtime chief of staff,
Marc Short. Short joined Kemp’s
campaign as a senior adviser in
the race.
A former CEO of Reebok and
Dollar General, Perdue is a known
figure in Georgia whose family
has been involved in the state’s
business community and politics
for decades. He has echoed
Trump’s false election claims on
the trail.
“This governor’s race right now
will determine whether or not we
have a conservative Republican in
the White House in ’24,” Perdue
said at an event on Friday.
The cousin of a former gover-
nor and heir to a major political
dynasty in the state, Perdue ran as
a political outsider in 2014. He
lost to now-Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) in
a January 2021 runoff that, to-
gether with another Senate runoff
in the state, handed Democrats
unified control of Congress. In his
bid for governor, Perdue has tak-
en on a strident tone as he cham-
pions false election claims.
He frequently lambastes Kemp
for “dividing the Republican Par-vote.
Kemp’s backers hope that a
victory will send the message that
it’s possible to stand up to Trump
without paying the ultimate polit-
ical price. “This is an important
one. Him losing gives people
courage to speak out,” said Bill
Palatucci, a Republican National
Committee member from New
Jersey and an ally of Christie.
On the campaign trail, Kemp
touts conservative policies he and
the GOP-controlled state legisla-
ture enacted during his term, in-
cluding an election security law
that voting rights groups argued
would lead to voter suppression
and brought backlash from civil
and business leaders in the state.
Kemp has cited concerns about
the 2020 election, even though he
certified the results of the election
that President Biden won in the
state.
In this year’s legislative ses-
sion, Kemp has signed laws ap-
pealing to conservative voters on
a variety of issues, including mea-
sures that permit the carrying of a
firearm without a license, add
restrictions on the teaching of
race, history, gender and sexuality
in classrooms, and “the toughest
abortion bill in the country,” in
the governor’s words. The bill
bans an abortion after a doctor
can detect what they call “a fetal
heartbeat in the womb,” usually at
about six weeks, before many
women know they are pregnant.
“We didn’t waver when we
passed the heartbeat bill and Hol-
lywood tried to cancel us,” Kemp
declared Saturday during an
event that attracted about 200
people in Watkinsville, Ga., with
Ricketts, the Nebraska governorELIJAH NOUVELAGE/GETTY IMAGES
G ov. Brian Kemp, left, with f ormer New Jersey governor Chris Christie, at a campaign event in Alpharetta, Ga., on May 17. Former
president Donald Trump’s clash with Kemp has brought into focus a battle over the direction of the GOP that extends beyond Georgia.“The Executive Committee be-
trayed not only survivors who
worked hard to try to make some-
thing happen, but betrayed the
whole Southern Baptist Conven-
tion,” said Brown, who is a retired
appellate attorney in Colorado.
“They’ve made their own faith
into a complicit partner for their
own decision to choose institu-
tional protection over the protec-
tion of kids and congregants.”
The report, which was request-
ed by Southern Baptists during its
last annual meeting, comes just
weeks before its next gathering in
Anaheim, Calif., where members
are expected discuss next steps.
Recommendations by Guidepost
include providing dedicated sur-
vivor advocacy support and a sur-
vivor compensation fund.
“We must be ready to take
meaningful steps to change our
culture as it relates to sexual
abuse,” Ed Litton, the current SBC
president, said in a statement.
Rachael Denhollander, a for-
mer USA gymnast who outed Lar-
ry Nassar’s serial sexual assaults,
is an adviser on a Southern Baptist
task force on the issue and said
that the report shows a need for
institutions like the SBC to seek
outside expertise on sex abuse.
“It shows a level of coverup and
harassment and resistance to re-
forms on an institutional level
that has led to decades of survivors
being victimized and hurt,” Den-
hollander said.
“The depths of wickedness and
inhumanity in this report are
breathtaking,” Moore said. “Peo-
ple will say, ‘This is not all South-
ern Baptists, look at all the good
we do.’ The report demonstrates a
pattern of stonewalling, coverup,
intimidation and retaliation.”client privilege, which would give
investigators access to records of
conversations on legal matters
among the committee’s members
and staffers. They said doing so
went against the advice of conven-
tion lawyers and could bankrupt
the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.
The debate over waiving privi-
lege upset a large swath of South-
ern Baptists, causing some to be-
lieve the Executive Committee
was not doing the “will of the
messengers,” or following the lead
of lay leaders who had already
voted in favor of doing so. It also
led to the resignation of the Execu-
tive Committee’s head, Ronnie
Floyd, who also once served as
SBC president and was on Presi-
dent Donald Trump’s evangelical
advisory council. The decision
over attorney-client privilege also
led to the resignation of the con-
vention’s attorneys, who are
named throughout the report.
According to the report, Floyd
told SBC leaders in a 2019 email
that he had received “some calls”
from “key SBC pastors and lead-
ers” expressing “growing concern
about all the emphasis on the sex-
ual abuse crisis.” He then stated:
“Our priority cannot be the latest
cultural crisis.” Floyd did not im-
mediately return a request for
comment.
Christa Brown, who told SBC
leaders that she was abused by a
youth pastor who went on to serve
in other Southern Baptist church-
es in multiple states, has long ad-
vocated a churchwide database
and was met with hostility. The
report states that when she met
with SBC leaders in 2007, a mem-
ber of the Executive Committee
“turned his back to her during her
speech and another chortled.”concerns, calling them “a satanic
scheme to completely distract us
from evangelism.”
In an April 2007 email, the con-
vention’s attorney sent Boto a
memo explaining how a SBC data-
base could be implemented con-
sistent with SBC polity, saying “it
would fit our polity and present
ministries to help churches in this
area of child abuse and sexual
misconduct.” The report states
that he recommended “immediate
action to signal the Convention’s
desire that the [executive commit-
tee] and the entities begin a more
aggressive effort in this area.” That
same year, after a Southern Bap-
tist pastor made a motion for a
database, Boto rejected the idea.
For a denomination designed to
give more democratic power to its
lay leaders or “messengers” who
voted to commission the third-
party investigation, the report
shows how lay Southern Baptists
allowed a few key leaders, includ-
ing Boto and the convention’s
longtime lawyer, James Guenther,
to control the national institution-
al response to sex abuse for dec-
ades. Guenther, the longtime law-
yer for the SBC, said he had not
read the report yet. Attempts to
reach Boto on Sunday were unsuc-
cessful.
“The report is going to validate
so much about how they really
blindly chose to stay on the same
path all these years,” said Tiffany
Thigpen, whose story of sexual
abuse in a Southern Baptist
church is detailed in the report. “It
buoys what we’ve been saying all
along. Now Southern Baptists
have to carry the weight.”
During Executive Committee
meetings in 2021, some members
argued against waiving attorney-“I knew it was rotten, but it’s
astonishing and infuriating,” said
Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was
once the highest-paid female exec-
utive at the SBC and whose story of
sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist
seminary is detailed in the report.
“This is a denomination that is
through and through about pow-
er. It is misappropriated power. It
does not in any way reflect the
Jesus I see in the scriptures. I am
so gutted.”
The report also names several
senior SBC leaders who protected
and even supported alleged abus-
ers, including three past presi-
dents of the convention, a former
vice president and the former
head of the SBC’s administrative
arm.
The third-party investigation
into actions between 2000 and
2021 focused on actions by the
SBC’s Executive Committee,
which handles financial and ad-
ministrative duties. Although
Southern Baptist churches oper-
ate independently from one an-
other, the Nashville-based Execu-
tive Committee distributes more
than $190 million cooperative
program in its annual budget that
funds its missions, seminaries and
ministries.
For decades, the findings show,
Southern Baptists were told the
denomination could not put to-
gether a registry of sex offenders
because it would go against the
denomination’s polity — or how it
functions. What the report reveals
is that leaders maintained a list of
offenders while keeping it a secret
to avoid the possibility of getting
sued. The report also includes pri-
vate emails showing how l ongtime
leaders such as August Boto were
dismissive about sexual abuseabusers, the report states.
While the report focuses pri-
marily on how leaders handled
abuse issues when survivors came
forward, it also states that a major
Southern Baptist leader was credi-
bly accused of sexually assaulting
a woman just one month after he
completed his two-year tenure as
president of the convention. The
report finds that Johnny Hunt, a
beloved Georgia-based Southern
Baptist pastor who has been a
senior vice president at the SBC’s
missions arm, was credibly ac-
cused of assaulting a woman dur-
ing a Panama City Beach, Fla.,
vacation in 2010.
The report states that Hunt, in
an interview with investigators,
denied any physical contact with
the woman but acknowledged
that he had interactions with her.
After the report was released,
Hunt, who has not been charged
over the alleged incident, posted a
statement on Twitter, saying, “I
vigorously deny the circum-
stances and characterizations set
forth in the Guidepost report. I
have never abused anybody.”
Hunt resigned on May 13 from
the North American Mission
Board, according to a statement
by NAMB President Kevin Ezell.
Ezell said that before May 13, he
was not aware of alleged miscon-
duct by Hunt. Generally, he called
the details of the report “egregious
and deeply disturbing.”
Sex abuse survivors, many of
whom have been sharing their sto-
ries for years, anticipated Sun-
day’s release would confirm the
facts around many of the stories
they have already shared, but
many were still surprised to see
the pattern of coverups by the
highest levels of leadership.had intense internal battles over
how to handle sex abuse. The 13
million-member denomination,
along with other religious institu-
tions in the United States, has
struggled with declining mem-
bership for the past 15 years. Its
leaders have long resisted com-
parisons between its sexual abuse
crisis and that of the Catholic
Church, saying the total number
of abuse cases among Southern
Baptists was small.
The investigation finds that for
almost two decades, survivors of
abuse and other concerned South-
ern Baptists have been contacting
the Southern Baptist Convention’s
administrative arm to report al-
leged child molesters and other
accused abusers who were in the
pulpit or employed as church staff
members. Many of the cases re-
ferred to in the r eport were c onsid-
ered outside the statute of limita-
tions, the time survivors can re-
port sex abuse, so it’s unclear how
many abusers were criminally
charged.
The report, compiled by an or-
ganization called Guidepost Solu-
tions at the request of Southern
Baptists, states that abuse survi-
vors’ calls and emails were “only to
be met, time and time again, with
resistance, stonewalling, and even
outright hostility” by leaders who
were concerned more with pro-
tecting the institution from liabili-
ty than from protecting Southern
Baptists from further abuse.
“While stories of abuse were
minimized, and survivors were ig-
nored or even vilified, revelations
came to light in recent years that
some senior SBC leaders had pro-
tected or even supported alleged
SBC FROM A
Report: Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, kept secret database