Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I come here in fulfillment of a promise that I made a couple of months ago to bring to the attention of the American people an injustice that is occurring in Turkey. I am here to talk about an American pastor, Andrew Brunson. He is from a church. He is from western North Carolina. He spent 20 years in Turkey as a missionary. He started out just doing missionary work without a church. Then he built a very small church that maybe can house 100 people, in Izmir. After the coup in 2016, Pastor Brunson was apprehended, and he has been in prison ever since. He was imprisoned for almost 19 months without any charges. For the vast majority of that time, he was in a cell designed for 8 people that had 21 in it, without charges. Earlier this year there were charges levied against him that are just absolutely absurd. I know from firsthand experience. After the indictment was issued, I heard through channels and through his wife Norine that Pastor Brunson was afraid that the American people were going to read this indictment, believe it, and turn their backs on him. So it was important for me to go to Turkey and let him know that is the last thing we are going to do and that I was going to bring this to the American people's attention until he was released. I went back about a month later. I sat through a court proceeding in a Turkish courtroom for about 12 hours, and I heard some of the most absurd claims you can possibly imagine.…”