Huckabee Stands By a Televangelist - TIME

Huckabee Stands By a Televangelist - TIME: "But the Senate Finance Committee has been looking too. Last week Senator Charles Grassley, the Committee's ranking Republican, announced a probe of the finances of six television preachers. He sent each a letter filled with extremely pointed questions about their multimillion-dollar finances. The longest questionnaire, with 42 specific queries, went out to Copeland and his wife Gloria. Copeland is the founder and head of the multimillion-dollar Kenneth Copeland ministries, and the host in its crown jewel, the daily Believers Voice of Victory broadcast.

A Senate probe is one thing. But the Charisma ad has introduced a campaign wrinkle to it: Will Huckabee, who is riding a wave of momentum and currently polling second among Republicans in Iowa prior to its caucuses, stick by Copeland and risk putting himself on the wrong side of Grassley as he forges ahead with his investigation?

Senator Grassley's letter requested Copeland and his wife's credit card records and information on all offshore banking accounts; receipts for their planes (The Ft. Worth Star Telegram reports that FAA records show Copeland owns three planes and his ministry has several more) and whether trips to Hawaii and Fiji on a ministry plane were for business reasons. Grassley also wants the specifics of a reported deal whereby the ministry — which possesses considerable mineral rights — allegedly used them to "capitalize" a for-profit company. All the questions seem aimed at determining whether Copeland had broken the tax laws regarding non-profits, emphatically and repeatedly.

In the meantime, Huckabee is standing by the Copelands. In an e-mail message to TIME, Huckabee maintained, "Kenneth and Gloria Copeland are about the most gracious, authentic, and humble people I know and I consider them dear friends. They have brought hope to millions and have operated with the utmost integrity as far as I know. I have found them to be as warm and genuine in their private moments as they are in their public moments."

That sentiment will find resonance among those Evangelical Christians who worry that Grassley's pursuit of the six preachers, who all belong to a faction of Charismatic Christianity known loosely as "prosperity gospel," amounts to what one observer called a "saint hunt." It will not play as well with others who have grown increasingly frustrated at the opulent lifestyles of the televangelists. In any case, maintaining a friend's innocence allows Huckabee to continue to access a part of the media important to Republican hopefuls. Charisma's editor, J. Lee Grady, was slightly amused that anyone would think Copeland would be a burden on Huckabee. "Number one," he says, "Just because Grassley's investigating Copeland doesn't mean Huckabee thinks he's guilty. And number two, Huckabee is courting so many different camps, he's gonna go wherever he's welcomed." Neither are Huckabee's presidential rivals likely to press him on the matter: there is no point annoying religious conservatives."

Ex-employees: Copeland ministry followers being misled | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | National Politics: "Jeff Spradlin said he grew up admiring the Copelands and was excited to work for them. “Within 90 days, I started realizing this was a huge mistake,' he said. For nearly two years, Mr. Spradlin said he worked in the mail processing center where prayer request envelopes stuffed with cash would arrive. He said a group of ministers, not the Copelands, would pray over the unopened envelopes. Mr. Spradlin said he and other mail processors were the ones who read the requests. “I was sitting there getting this paperwork all the day thinking, Kenneth and Gloria don't see a word of this,' he said. Another person who has worked with the ministry, Nathan Boutwell, said followers were being misled. 'They think that when they get the letter back that someone has actually prayed,” he said. Mr. Boutwell also said it was he, not Mr. Copeland, who read the prison ministry prayer requests. 'There was no actual human contact with that letter besides my eyes,' he said. 'But that's OK, Copeland gets 10,000 letters a week. But admit that. Don't imply that you read these personally when you don't.'

Mr. Copeland told WFAA-TV he did pray over some of his requests but not over all of them due to the volume of mail. He said he had a prayer team pray over the requests when he couldn’t.

Former employees also said their spirits sank after learning the Copelands have little if any contact with staff.

"The one time I saw the man was at the Christmas party," Mr. Boutwell said.

Another former employee, Barbara Pierce, said workers were told to avoid the Copelands if they ever encountered them.

"It was an unwritten law that if Kenneth or Gloria walked into the office you don't see them, you don't speak to them," she said.

Former employees also said that when the Copelands weren't on the road, they spent their days inside their 18,000-square-foot parsonage on the shores of Eagle Mountain Lake, surrounded by hundreds of acres of range and ranch land not far from their tennis courts and boat house."