Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I have come to the floor every week for the past several months to draw attention to a matter that I think should be important to anybody who travels overseas, anybody who does missionary work, anybody who can go to a country and potentially get detained for false charges and imprisoned for nearly 2 years. I am talking about a Presbyterian minister from North Carolina who has been in Turkey for the better part of 20 years. He was a missionary that entire time. He created a church in Izmir and has lived there peacefully and lawfully for two decades. In October of 2016, after the coup attempt--an illegal coup attempt, and the people responsible for it should actually have to answer to the Turkish justice system--they swept Pastor Brunson and thousands of other people into the Turkish justice system, and he has been in prison since 2016. He was in prison for nearly 19 months before he was ever charged with anything. In fact, he lost 50 pounds over the course of about a year. He was in a cell that was designed for 8 people but had 21 people in it. I don't believe any of the others even spoke English. He was then transferred to another prison where he was kept in a cell with one other person, given virtually no access to the outside world. He has experienced medical challenges, as anyone would expect when you are in prison without charges, and we found out the charges were bogus. That would weigh on you mentally.…”