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Rev. Warnock allegedly ‘extremely uncooperative’ during 2002 child-abuse investigation, police records reveal

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One of the Democratic candidates in Georgia’s two U.S. Senate runoff elections, Rev. Raphael Warnock, allegedly obstructed a police investigation into child abuse at a church-affiliated summer camp, according to state police records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, Fox News reported Friday.

Warnock was “extremely uncooperative and disruptive” of the 2002 probe, and he demanded that the camp’s attorneys should be present when officers were interviewing the camp counselors, according to the documents. This is despite the fact that the counselors could only request a lawyer for themselves, whereas Warnock could not do so on their behalf. The Democratic senatorial candidate was senior pastor of the church that operated the camp at that time.

Warnock, the pastor at the same Atlanta baptist church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had also been a pastor, is running against incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) in a runoff for one of Georgia’s two Senate seats up for election on January 5. While both elections will take place on that date, voters can begin casting early ballots this Monday.

During a December 7 debate between the two opponents, Warnock called Loeffler “a liar” when she claimed he had been arrested for obstructing a probe into child abuse.

“[I was] working at trying to make sure that young people who were being questioned by law enforcement had the benefit of counsel, a lawyer or a parent,” Warnock explained. “The law enforcement officers actually later thanked me for my cooperation and for helping them.”

One of the reverend’s campaign officials defended Warnock to Fox News, saying the fact checks reveal that Loeffler’s obstruction allegations were not accurate.

“This is yet another one of Senator Loeffler’s lowest of the low attacks that independent fact checkers have said is ‘mostly false,'” the Warnock campaign’s rapid response director, Michael Brewer, told Fox News. “The truth is he was protecting the rights of young people to make sure they had a lawyer or a parent when being questioned. Law enforcement officials later praised him for his help in this investigation.”

The names in the 18-year-old police record have been redacted, however, the reports line up with news articles about the incident, which led to Warnock’s arrest, according to Fox News. The two unnamed ministers, whom the criminal complaint was filed against, are only referred to in the documents as “the reverends.”

At the request of a prosecutor, it should be noted, criminal charges were later dropped. “Miscommunication” is what the prosecutor assigned blame.

On July 31, 2002, investigators arrived at Camp Farthest Out in Eldersberg, Maryland. Police reports described how the two reverends allegedly disrupted interviews.

“This investigator informed [camp administrators] that if the counselors requested that an attorney be present that was their right, however, no one else could [invoke] their rights to an attorney on their behalf,” the report reads.

Notably, the arrest of Warnock and his colleague Rev. Mark Andre Wright after being charged with obstructing a police investigation at the camp was reported in a 2002 Baltimore Sun article, according to Fox News.

Neither of the clergymen, a state trooper assigned to the case said, were suspected of being involved in the original criminal complaint that brought the police to the camp.

The officer would not describe the nature of the abuse, but Warnock later said it was not sexual and refused to comment further, per Fox News.

Want more details from this story? Click here to read the full original Fox News report here.

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.

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Biden impeachment hearing to begin this week, GOP announces first witnesses

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The House Overusing Committee is holding the first impeachment hearing into President Joe Biden this Thursday and has announced the first three interview witnesses. The impeachment process will assess whether then Vice President Joe Biden received a bribe from a Ukrainian businessman to change the outcome of U.S. policy.

The committee announced three witnesses, including George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, former Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of Justice Tax Division Eileen O’Connor, and forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky.

“Since January, House Committees on Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary, and Ways and Means have uncovered an overwhelming amount of evidence showing President Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain,” said Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) who also made the following lengthy statements:

“Thousands of pages of financial records, emails, texts, testimony from credible IRS whistleblowers, and a transcribed interview with Biden family business associate Devon Archer all reveal that Joe Biden allowed his family to sell him as ‘the brand’ around the world to enrich the Biden family. Joe Biden showed up on at least two dozen occasions to send signals of access, influence, and power to those who were paying the Bidens.” 

“Based on the evidence, Congress has a duty to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s corruption. Americans demand and deserve answers, transparency, and accountability for this abuse of public office…This week, the House Oversight Committee will present evidence uncovered to date and hear from legal and financial experts about crimes the Bidens may have committed as they brought in millions at the expense of U.S. interests.”

Just The News reports: Prompting the impeachment inquiry is an unclassified FD-1023 form that contains confidential human source information outlining an alleged bribery effort. The tip describes an arrangement in which Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky allegedly hired Hunter Biden to secure access to his father, upon whom he leaned to secure the firing of then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the firm.

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