In the wake of his anti-Hillary opening prayer at the Republican National Convention, Pastor Mark Burns assumed his new role as a Donald Trump surrogate with militant enthusiasm. But as he soon found out, the public eye brings increased scrutiny and he’s now having to answer to charges that he fabricated certain parts of his past.
According to ThinkProgress, Burns (who is a well-known leader of the “prosperity gospel” movement) claims on his website that he received a Bachelor of Science degree from North Greenville University. Additionally, he claimed to have served a 6-year stint in the Army Reserve and was member of the prestigious black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi.
But when CNN looked into the claims, North Greenville reportedly said that Burn only spent one semester at the university and the fraternity has no record of him ever being a member. Making matters worse, his claims of spending time in the Army Reserve were outright false.
During a bombshell interview with CNN’s Victor Blackwell, who confronted Burns with the discrepancies, the pastor first said that the fraudulent claims were planted on his website by hackers. After demanding in vain that the interview should be “off the record,” he walked out.
Soon after the disastrous interview, Burns relented and released a statement saying that his claims were the result of his youthful indiscretion, and accused the media of unfairly targeting him because “I am a black man supporting Donald Trump for President.”
Donald Trump's outreach to Black people is about as real as Pastor Mark Burns' biography.
— Zerlina Maxwell (@ZerlinaMaxwell) September 3, 2016
Watch an excerpt from the interview in the video below. You can the full version here.
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