In May 2026, social media users claimed that Robert Morris, a pastor who once advised U.S. President Donald Trump on spiritual matters, was "now free" after serving six months behind bars for sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl.
The claim circulated on Facebook, X and Threads.
The rumor was true. We first fact-checked this claim in April 2026, shortly after Morris' release from a county jail. (Some online posts in May claimed the news was "NEW," but he'd been free for about a month as of this writing.)
One popular X post from May claimed Morris was sentenced to 10 years but "Republicans let him out after 6 months." That post omits context. Morris agreed to a plea deal reached with Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican, and the survivor of his abuse, Cindy Clemishire, who publicly identified herself to the media as an adult.
Under the terms of the deal, Morris received a 10-year suspended sentence in 2025 for five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child, meaning he would — and did — spend six months behind bars and serve the rest of his sentence on probation.
Morris' indictment said the five counts came from instances of abusing Clemishire from the ages of 12 to 14.
Morris, the founder of a Texas megachurch called Gateway Church, served on a 25-person evangelical advisory board for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
The White House told Snopes in 2025 that Morris "is not the President's spiritual adviser." A spokesperson for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign told The New York Times in June of that year that Morris had no role in that campaign. We asked the White House for more information on when Morris left Trump's orbit in April and did not hear back.
In an interview with Clemishire published by Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA, she called the plea deal "too short" but said it was "the alternative to going through years of a trial potentially and taking more of my time and more of my energy, and that was just not something I was willing to do" (starting at 5:12).
"While it's not enough, I don't know that there could ever be enough time served for stealing a child's life," she said.
Clemishire's lawyer said in a statement to the Dallas Morning News that she "will continue to fully pursue justice via the civil justice system."
Some claims said Morris was "released from prison." While the public sometimes uses the terms "jail" and "prison" interchangeably, it is worth noting Morris did not spend time in a state or federal prison of the type meant for long-term incarceration. Morris served his time in a county jail, typically considered a short-term holding facility, often for suspects awaiting trial or conviction.
According to public voting records, Morris will serve out his probation at a Texas home that real estate marketplace Zillow estimated had a value of $1.4 million. CBS News reported that the home cost $1.5 million, which may be where that particular estimate circulating online came from. (Zillow estimates his home would sell for between $1.2 million to $1.5 million; Texas is a nondisclosure state, meaning how much Morris paid for the home is not public information.)
Morris released in late March, per plea deal
We reported in 2025 that officers booked Morris into jail on October 2, 2025. A case search lookup on the Oklahoma courts website for Morris' name determined that he was processed for release on March 30, 2026, and served a total of six months (see Page 9). The Associated Press reported that Oklahoma law enforcement released Morris from Osage County Jail on March 31, 2026, just after midnight.
The October 2025 announcement of Morris' plea deal from the Oklahoma attorney general detailed the conviction and confirmed that Morris was originally sentenced to 10 years, with six months in jail and the rest on probation (emphasis ours):
The founder of a Texas megachurch pleaded guilty today to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child stemming from incidents that date back to the 1980s. Robert Preston Morris, 64, appeared in court today in front of Osage County District Special Judge Cindy Pickerill.
Morris, who resigned last summer as senior pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, was indicted by a Multi-County Grand Jury earlier this year. The abuse began in December 1982 when Morris was a traveling evangelist visiting the family of the victim in Hominy. The victim was 12 years old at the time, and the abuse continued over the next four years.
Under the plea agreement, Morris received a 10-year suspended sentence with the first six months to be served in the Osage County Jail. He must register as a sex offender and will be supervised by Texas authorities via interstate compact. Morris was also ordered to pay his costs of incarceration, including any medical expenses, and restitution to the victim.
Clemishire's accusations of Morris' conduct first became public via a June 2024 post from The Wartburg Watch, a religious watchdog blog. That same month, Morris resigned as senior pastor at Gateway Church in Southlake three days after he confessed to engaging in "sexual behavior" with a child during the 1980s, NBC News reported.
Morris' ties to Trump
As we previously reported, Trump's presidential campaign named Morris as part of an "executive board convened to provide advisory support to Mr. Trump on those issues important to Evangelicals and other people of faith in America."
Morris also co-led Trump in prayer during a 2020 roundtable at Gateway Church's Dallas campus, according to official government records on the National Archives website, and attended the 2020 Rose Garden ceremony celebrating the Supreme Court nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett that became a COVID-19 "superspreader" event.
Oklahoma's offender lookup returned a result with Morris' mug shot alongside the five criminal counts he received, which visually matched credible images of Morris at the roundtable with Trump.
In 2021, he was part of an effort to "mobilize conservatives and evangelicals ahead of Trump's 2024 presidential bid," according to The Texas Tribune. Morris was also active in state politics. In 2017, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tapped him and other faith leaders to support an unsuccessful "bathroom bill" that sought to restrict transgender people from using bathrooms aligning with their gender identity.