Thread by @RobertDownen_

🧵🧵For years, Jared Woodfill has led extreme anti-gay campaigns in Texas, comparing LGBTQ people to child molesters.

And for years, he's known of child sex abuse claims against his longtime law partner and Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler.
texastribune.org/2023/03/27/hou…

Under oath last month, Woodfill said he was told in 2004 that Pressler sexually abused a minor - claims that were made during mediation of an assault lawsuit against Pressler that Woodfill quietly settled for $450,000.
texastribune.org/2023/03/27/hou…

Despite that, Woodfill denied any knowledge of Pressler's behavior in 2016, when a young attorney told him Pressler told him "lewd stories" about being naked with men before inviting him to skinny-dip.
texastribune.org/2023/03/27/hou…

Woodfill's deposition also provides new details on his decades-long relationship with Pressler, a massively important Texas political powerbroker, longtime Southern Baptist leader, one-time White House nominee and high-ranking member of the anti-LGBTQ Council for National Policy.

Under oath, Woodfill said Pressler did almost no work for their firm but was provided a string of personal assistants, nearly all young men, who worked out of his mansion. Two now allege sex abuse/misconduct.
texastribune.org/2023/03/27/hou…

New court records also show that in 2004, leaders of Houston's massive First Baptist Church investigated claims that Pressler had undressed and groped a college student - but found nothing conclusive and feared damaging Pressler's reputation. #SBCtoo
texastribune.org/2023/03/27/hou…

Here is what First Baptist leaders wrote to Pressler about the incident, which they deemed "morally and spiritually inappropriate."

"This kind of behavior, if brought to light, might distort your testimony or cause others to stumble,” they wrote. #SBCtoo #ChurchToo

The new details came via an ongoing, 6-year-old lawsuit in which a man accuses Pressler of decades of rape - enabled by Woodfill & Southern Baptist leaders. Last year, the Texas Supreme Court let the case go forward in a landmark ruling for CSA survivors.
houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

The claims against Pressler - and that Southern Baptist leaders enabled him - were the impetus for five years of reporting by me, @LiseDigger & @John_Tedesco into sex abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention - which led to an ongoing DOJ investigation.
houstonchronicle.com/news/investiga…