Herschel Walker said the tenants of Sen. Raphael Warnock’s church need not fear being evicted for past-due rent.
In a statement Tuesday, the Republican nominee for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat said he would pay their rent to stop “Reverend Warnock from evicting” them from a building that his Atlanta church owns.
“I have never known a preacher that likes abortion even after birth, won’t pay his child support, and evicts poor people to the street,” Mr. Walker said. “I will personally pay the $4,900 in past due rents listed in this article to keep Reverend Warnock from evicting these people.”
Mr. Walker, who has faced more than a week of bad press because of reports that he denies of paying for a girlfriend’s abortion, was referring to a report Monday in the Washington Free Beacon that Ebenezer Baptist Church tried during the COVID pandemic to evict for late rent at least eight disadvantaged tenants from an apartment building it owns.
The Walker statement noted that Ebenezer Baptist Church pays Mr. Warnock personally a housing allowance of $7,417 per month. His declared pastoral salary in 2021 was $120,000, and that comes on top of his salary as a U.S. senator.
One of those tenants was in arrears by less than $30, the Free Beacon reported.
The Columbia Tower at MLK Village in downtown Atlanta provides housing to the “chronically homeless” and people with “mental disabilities.”
“This should deeply unsettle Georgia voters, not just as a sign of blatant hypocrisy, but of unjust cruelty from a wealthy man of his stature,” National Republican Senatorial Committee Spokesman T.W. Arrighi said of Mr. Warnock in a statement.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.