C Street

by Jeff Sharlet

  “The idea of the power”: Author’s interview.

  traces “servant leader” back to its origins: Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 107.

  “submerge”: Notes on 1966 reorganization document, folder 2, box 563, collection 459, BGCA.

  “Putting aside your ego”: Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart, 110.

  “the drum major instinct”: James M. Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 259.

  “soul surgery”: “The History of Fellowship House,” undated brochure in collection 459, BGCA. Abram borrowed the term and the concept from another evangelist with a mission to the elite, Frank Buchman, to whom the most concise and readily available introduction maybe found in “Soul Surgeon,” a profile by Alva Johnson in the April 23, 1932, New Yorker.

  “They’re into living with what is”: Author’s interview.

  “pretty intense”: Breed, “ ‘Darkness’ Gripped Sanford.”

  “the key”: Jenny Sanford, 179.

  “Sweetest”: Mark Sanford to Maria Belen Chapur, July 10, 2008, “Exclusive: Read-E-mails Between Sanford, Woman.”

  “He had always been so good”: Jenny Sanford, 175.

  “His willingness”: Ibid., 177.

  “handful”: “S.C. Governor ‘Crossed Lines’ with More Women,” Associated Press, posted at MSNBC.com, July 1, 2009, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31664990/ns/politics-more_politics/.

  “Jack understood men”: Jenny Sanford, 184–85.

  $3.5 million beach house: Alberto Armendariz, “The Unfaithful Governor Under Pressure,” La Nacion, June 26, 2009.

  “ ‘Hypocrite!’ they didn’t quite thunder”: JoAnn Wypijewski, “Triangles,” The Nation, July 20, 2009.

  “I can only imagine”: Jenny Sanford, 207.

  “heart connection”: Ibid., 187.

  “We were asked to go over and stay with the Ensigns”: Transcript of Jon Ralston’s interview with Doug Hampton, Las Vegas Sun, July 8, 2009, http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jul/08/transcript-jon-ralstons-interview-doug-hampton/.

  $160,000: J. Patrick Coolican and Lisa Mascaro, “Ensign’s Mistress Saw Salary Double, Son Was Paid $5,400,” Las Vegas Sun, June 19, 2009.

  “Walk alongside”: Cynthia McFadden, Melinda Arons, and Lauren Sher, “Exclusive: Doug Hampton Speaks Out on Sen. Ensign’s Affair with His Wife,” Nightline, November 23, 2009, http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/doug-hampton-speaks-sen-john-ensigns-affair-ethic/story?id=9140788.

  “I chose to bring in some really close friends”: Transcript of Jon Ralston’s interview.

  $8.5 million: Daniel J. Albregts, attorney for Doug Hampton, to Sen. Tom Coburn, May 21, 2009, reproduced in “Records Show Senator’s Tangled History with Aides,” New York Times, October 1, 2009, http://documents.nytimes.com/in-wake-of-affair-senator-ensign-may-have-violated-an-ethics-law-2?ref=politics#p=33.

  “God never intended for us to do this”: Sen. John Ensign to Cindy Hampton, February 2008,” reproduced in “Records Show Senator’s Tangled History with Aides.”

  “[They] think the consequences don’t apply”: McFadden, Arons, and Sher, “Doug Hampton Speaks Out.”

  told his friend Steve Wark: Author’s interview.

  CHAPTER 3: The Chosen

  “the Prayboy Mansion”: Ronald A. Lindsay, “What Constitutes a Church?” CenterForInquiry.net, February 25, 2010, http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/what_constitutes_a_church/.

  “David from C Street”: Sue Rochman, “Call Me Madam,” Advocate, undated, http://www.advocate.com/article.aspx?id=22495.

  “Senator X”: Garry Trudeau, Doonesbury, August 3–12, 2009.

  “supportive ministry… shelter if needed”: 990 tax forms for the Fellowship Foundation and the Wilberforce Foundation, as well as for most of the other nonprofit organizations discussed in this chapter, may be viewed, with free registration, at http://www2.guidestar.org/.

  “benevolent subversion”: Richard Halverson to Clifton J. Robinson, May 22, 1963, folder 2, box 232, collection 459, BGCA.

  “Yeast in the capital”: John G. Turner, “Selling Jesus to Modern America: Campus Crusade for Christ, Evangelical Culture, and Conservative Politics,” PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 2005, 313.

  “There are 435 congressional districts”: John G. Turner, Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: the Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 161.

  “Income-redistributing”: Ibid., 163.

  “A clear testimony”: “Arizona Shootout,” Time, September 20, 1976.

  In 2006, I reported: Jeff Sharlet, “Through a Glass, Darkly,” Harper’s, December 2006.

  inspector general’s report: Report H06L102270308, “Alleged Misconduct By DoD Officials Concerning Christian Embassy,” United States Department of Defense, July 20, 2007, http://www.dodig.mil/fo/Foia/ERR/Xtian_Embassy_072707.pdf.

  “Even a cursory look”: Author’s interview.

  in 1987, Christian Embassy’s Flag Officer Fellowship had been cofounded… Kicklighter: Anne C. Loveland, American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 1942–1993 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 207. Writes Loveland: “A final component of the Christian Embassy ministry to the Pentagon was the Flag Officer Fellowship, founded in March, 1987, when Lieutenant General Claude Kicklighter and Major General Howard Graves asked [Christian Embassy Military Ministry Director Ron] Soderquist to help coordinate such a group. Beginning with about ten members, the fellowship met every Thursday morning from 6:15 to 7:15…. By the early 1990s the Flag Officer Fellowship had expanded to about forty members.”

  several trips funded by the International Foundation: Records for congressional travel sponsored by the International Foundation are available at http://www.legistorm.com/trip/list/by/sponsor/id/6999/name/International_Foundation.html.

  “Two hundred national and international world leaders”: “Youth Corps Vision,” a document I copied during my first encounter with the Family, reported on in Jeff Sharlet, “Jesus Plus Nothing,” Harper’s, March 2003.

  met with the president of Paraguay: Records for congressional travel sponsored by Christian Embassy are available at http://www.legistorm.com/trip/list/by/sponsor/id/5897/name/Christian_Embassy.html.

  The Ambassadors came into being: See 990 tax forms for Ambassadors of Reconciliation at http://www2.guidestar.org/.

  William Aramony: See “Charity Leader Had Warning on Misconduct,” New York Times, March 15, 1995, and Michael Duffy, “Resignation Charity Begins at Home,” Time, June 24, 2001.

  $7,612: Records for congressional travel sponsored by the Ambassadors of Reconciliation Foundation are available at http://www.legistorm.com/trip/list/by/sponsor/id/5064/name/Ambassadors_of_Reconciliation_Foundation.html.

  “part of the U.S. Congress Leadership Breakfast Group”: Zarook Marikkar’s description of Sri Lanka’s Parliamentary Leadership Group is available at http://www.grassroots.lk/members.htm. (Accessed June 1, 2009.)

  Beginning in 2004, the first year Marikkar led: “National Day Celebrations in Washington, DC, Represent Ethnic and Religious Harmony,” Sri Lanka Embassy in the United States, circa February 2004, http://www.slembassyusa.org/press_releases/winter_2003/national_day_cele_04_20feb04.html. Other members of the delegation included Sri Lankan Supreme Court Justice Shiranee Thilakawardana, Hon. Susil Premajayantha, member of Parliament, and Harim Peiris, the president’s spokesman.

  the money flowed: For U.S. foreign assistance (both military and otherwise) to Sri Lanka in 2000–2008, see table 2. Direct U.S. Assistance to Sri Lanka, FY2000–FY2008, in a 2009 congressional report titled “Sri Lanka: Background and U.S. Relations,” available at http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/138746.pdf. The figure of about $10 million in U.S. military aid to Sri Lanka in 2000–2003 is a compiled numbe
r. In making this compilation, I used the categories of financing under the rubric of military aid as defined by the Federation of American Scientists (see http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/aid/aidindex.htm). As pertaining to Sri Lanka’s military aid in 2000–2003, I tallied these categories of funding: International Military Education and Training (IMET); Non-Proliferation; Anti-terrorism; Demining, and Related Programs (NADR); and Economic Support Fund (ESF). Additionally, in 2006 Sri Lanka began receiving military aid from the Defense Department—$10.8 million that year. See table 2. Section 1206 Funding: FY2006–FY2009 Allocations, in a 2010 congressional report titled “Security Assistance Reform: ‘Section 1206’ Background and Issues for Congress,” available at http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/138746.pdf. A description of the Foreign Military Financing program, an initiative that stipulates that recipients use the funds to purchase American weapons and training, is available at http://www.dsca.mil/home/foreign_military_financing%20_program.htm.

  Jeff Sessions… Mike Pence: “3 Ministers, Top Officials Attend 2008 US Congress National Prayer Breakfast,” Bottom Line, March 12, 2008, http://www.thebottomline.lk/2008/03/12/B35.htm. Marikkar’s delegation was even more power-packed this time, including officials from the ministries of foreign affairs, media and information, and education.

  “Intentionally and repeatedly… humanitarian operations”: “War Crimes in Sri Lanka: Asia Report No. 91,” International Crisis Group, May 17, 2010. The full report can be downloaded at http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/media-releases/2010/asia/war-crimes-in-sri-lanka.aspx.

  “force, fraud, or allurement”: “U.S. Congress Pressures Sri Lanka on Anti-Conversion Law,” The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, February 5, 2009, http://www.becketfund.org/index.php/article/946.html. The Becket Fund tends to take conservative positions on issues, in keeping with the conservative wings of Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism, decrying “exaggerated concern for ‘separation of church and state.’ ”

  “universal inevitable”: Abraham Vereide to the board of the International Council for Christian Leadership, August 1964, folder 2, box 362, collection 459, BGCA.

  “a small band”: Tom Coburn, Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders (Nashville: WND Books, 2003), 214.

  Psalm 15: Tom Hess, “There’s No One I’m Afraid to Challenge,” http://www.family.org/cforum/citizenmag/coverstory/a0012717.cfm.

  “attractive young congressional staffers”: Ibid.

  “greatest threat”: “Transcript for November 6,” Meet the Press, November 6, 2005, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9898884/.

  “natural battleground”: Misbah Ahdab, interview by Feldman.

  $6,500: Records for congressional travel sponsored by the International Foundation are available at http://www.legistorm.com/trip/list/by/sponsor/id/6999/name/International_Foundation.html.

  “Coburn could not have demonstrated”: John Esposito, interview by Feldman.

  $410 million: Donna Miles, “Gates, Lebanese Defense Minister Explore Expanding Bilateral Relationship,” Armed Forces Press Service, April 8, 2009, http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53846.

  traveling with Rep. Mike Doyle, Tim Coe: Author’s interview with Toufic Agha, who supplied photographs.

  “Jesus for the world”: Paul Hellyer, Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Survival Plan for the Human Species (Bloomington, IL: AuthorHouse, 2010), 143. Hellyer, a former Canadian minister of defense, has traveled extensively with the Family.

  “carrier” for an “infectious agent”: Mark Siljander, A Deadly Misunderstanding: A Congressman’s Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 207.

  $11,000: Congressional travel records for Coburn’s federally funded trip to Lebanon in 2009 are available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?r111:./temp/~r111xqt8ki.

  “reckless indifference”: Peter Bouckaert and Nadim Houry, “Why They Died: Civilian Casualties in Lebanon During the 2006 War,” Human Rights Watch, September 2007.

  Fatfat told a colleague: Author’s interview with Toufic Agha.

  “I had to convince them”: Rick Stouffer and Bobby Kerlik, “Carnegie Man Rebuilding Sports in Iraq,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, January 9, 2006.

  “dougcoeleb”: Toufic Agha, interview by Feldman.

  $200,000: U.S. Embassy in Beirut, “U.S. Ambassador Celebrates Department of State Student Scholarships,” December 6, 2007, http://lebanon.usembassy.gov/latest_embassy_news/press-releases/pr120607/.

  a set-aside arranged by Rep. Frank Wolf: Daniel Scandling, Wolf’s press secretary, e-mail message to Feldman, May 20, 2010.

  “The expression Trible used to say”: Author’s interview.

  “kinship”: Maury O’Connell, interview by Feldman.

  “They wanted to know”: Abir Mariam, interview by Feldman.

  “Madam Doria”: “Ahmed,” interview by Feldman.

  the Twitter feed of… Clyde Lear: Clyde Lear’s Twitter feed can be found at http://www.twitter.com/clydelear. It is now a friends-only feed, but it was publicly available in April of 2009. At the time, Toufic Agha saved a copy and shared it with me.

  Rami Majzoub… listed as the center’s contact person: Agha provided me with copies of the DCL’s 2008 USAID application, which he said was denied. He said DCL staff told him that the 2007 application had been approved, however, and that funds from the grant were used to purchase, among other items, the Jeep Montero in which Fatfat ferried Americans back and forth to the land he hoped to develop. A spokeswoman for USAID, on the other hand, denies any funding going to DCL—or having any records of their applications, despite the apparent evidence.

  “Reconciliation”: The PowerPoint presentation is available at http://www.bridgestocommonground.org/tools.html.

  “operating under the name”: The most recent 990 tax form on file, that of 2008, identifies the organization as “Bridges to Common Ground (formerly International Peace Organization),” headquartered in the law offices of William Aramony, but the organization’s partially completed website muddies the question: http://www.bridgestocommonground.org/about.html.

  an ideologue so zealous… prayer in schools: “True Believer,” Time, May 4, 1981.

  boldest voice: Douglas L. Koopman, Hostile Takeover: The House Republican Party, 1980–1995 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), 104.

  seeking a God-fearing woman: “W/M Congressman Seeks Wife,” Mother Jones, December 1981.

  His greatest success: R. Jeffrey Smith, “Siljander Pleads Guilty in Islamic American Relief Agency Lobbying Case,” Washington Post, July 8, 2010.

  “break the back of Satan”: Sara Diamond, Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1989), 71.

  Global Strategies Inc.: While Global Strategies has indeed served an impressive list of clients, its unique achievement may come under the heading “Innovations”: “One of the first to innovate restaurant salad bars and nonsmoking sections in the 1970s.” That would be when Siljander was in his twenties. See http://www.gsi.cc/services.html?id=9.

  “list of references”: Global Strategies Inc., http://www.gsi.cc/about.html?id=2.

  “As the humiliating final days”: Siljander, A Deadly Misunderstanding, 15.

  “three visiting spirits”: Ibid., 26.

  “Love doesn’t mean”: First to Know, Trinity Broadcasting Network, October 26, 2009. This interview can be viewed, in two parts, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prLMft0lsow&feature=related.

  Justice Department indicted: Case No. 07–00087–01/07-CR-W-NKL, United States of America v. Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), Mubarak Hamed, Ali Mohamed Bagegni, Ahmad Mustafa, Khalid al-Sudanee, Abdel Azim El-Siddig, and Mark Deli Siljander.

  “charitable donations”: Ibid., 26.

  the very term “convert”: Siljander, A Deadly Misunderstanding, 32–33.

  “They make every effort”: Ibid., p. 216.

  “Anything can happen”: Monday Associates Meeting,
January 23, 1995, Burnett Thompson presiding. Author’s copy.

  “Jesus… is mentioned”: Siljander, A Deadly Misunderstanding, 40.

  “Being an ex-congressman”: Ibid., 35. “I often traveled as an ‘emissary’ of the bipartisan House Prayer Breakfast Group,” Siljander writes, which may explain his claim, on his Global Strategies website, of extensive “semi-official” travel.

  He met with leaders: Ibid., 49–57. Siljander writes that he traveled on the personal plane of Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to visit the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara, who’ve been fighting for independence from an aggressive and far more powerful Morocco for decades. Siljander explains that he’s there to talk about Jesus in the Koran, and then says, “Look, I have a suggestion. Why don’t you stop fighting the Moroccans?” (53).

  In Beirut: Ibid., 204.

  With Coe… al-Bashir: Ibid., 59–70. “I have also stayed in contact with al-Bashir himself,” writes Siljander, “visiting with him numerous times since then, both in other locations around the world and in Khartoum” (68).

  “He’s my prayer partner”: First to Know, October 6, 2009.

  “They realize it got away”: Mindy Belz, “Dead Ends in Darfur,” World, November 25, 2006.

  “If Jesus were to have adopted”: Warnock’s blog, Amicus Dei, is no longer online, but his comments, made in the context of a review of The Family, are excerpted on another Christian blog: “Evangelical Leader of ‘The Family’ More Frightening than Jim Jones of Peoples Temple,” undated, http://mysteryworshipers.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/the-family-a-cult-more-deadly-than-christian-zionism-2/.

  “I told the Colonel”: Siljander, A Deadly Misunderstanding, 87. Siljander’s adventures in Libya and Benin are chronicled in chapter 8, “My Apology,” 83–98.

  Benin’s President Kérékou’… Global Strategies: Global Strategies “as an entity does not lobby, but after careful analysis of client requirements, refers client to appropriate professional lobbying team.” The list of nations for whom it has “advised lobbying teams” includes Taiwan, Nigeria, Cyprus, Bangladesh, South Korea, Republic of Congo, Benin, Eritrea, and Liberia, http://www.gsi.cc/services.html?id=3.