Political Quotes

“Madam President and those who were watching during the opening prayer, that was Pastor Andrew Brunson from North Carolina. This month marks a year since Pastor Brunson was released from a Turkish prison. Norine, his wife, is in the Gallery as well. They were swept up in what I considered to be an overreaction by President Erdogan and the Turkish regime in their imprisoning thousands of people after the coup attempt in Turkey. I actually found out about this first as casework. Pastor Brunson was from North Carolina. Then, slowly but steadily, diplomacy wasn't working, and he found himself in a Turkish prison--at one point in really what we would consider to be despicable circumstances. He was in a prison cell that was designed for maybe 8 or 10 people that had had more than 20 in it, and none of them spoke the English language. Pastor Brunson was a missionary in Turkey for almost 20 years. He had a church in Izmir, and all they tried to do for those who wanted to hear the Word of God was to speak it. For that, he was ultimately incarcerated and accused of being a part of the Turkish coup attempt. It was about a year later that they issued an indictment for him. It was a 62-page indictment that read like a horrible, fictional novel and had some of the most absurd allegations you could possibly imagine.…”