I did a massive investigation of the late, defrocked "Reverend" Pat Robertson, who died on Thursday at the age of 93 and was, weirdly, a fan of mine. I wrote the exposé for The Guardian and had secretly recorded Robertson admitting to several financial crimes.

He had raised millions of dollars from his flock, the 700 Club (which was named after those who donated $700 a year). They raised millions for “Operation Blessing”, supposedly to help alleviate the woes of refugees fleeing genocide in Rwanda.

“Operation Blessing” then purchased planes, ostensibly to shuttle medical supplies in and out of the refugee camp in Goma, Congo (then Zaire). However, investigative reporter Bill Sizemore of the Virginian-Pilot discovered that, except for one medical flight, the planes were used to haul heavy equipment for something called the African Development Corporation, a diamond mining operation distant from Goma. 

African Development was owned by Pat Robertson.

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Robertson also gave us the phrase "New World Order", for George Bush Senior's New World Order creation that would replace the Communist world order after the Cold War. And it was Robertson who warned us that there was a cabal of bankers, Presbyterians, the Federal Reserve, and the US Senate Finance Committee who are taking their orders directly from Satan. Now, I should note that the chairman of the banking committee who helped create the Federal Reserve was Pat Robertson's father; Absalom Willis Robertson was a Senator, was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and helped create the Federal Reserve Board. So, Pat Robertson basically saw his father as Satan’s Commander on Earth.

But it’s no joke, because we all paid the price for the Christian Coalition’s “good works”. The Christian Coalition illegally backed George Bush Senior for president by sending out tens of millions of pieces of mail to Born Again Christians telling them to vote for George Herbert Walker Bush.

Robertson deserves credit, if you wanna call it credit, for recreating the Republican Party as an adjunct of the Christian Coalition, and making Born Again Christians supreme — basically kingmakers — within the Republican Party.

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I spent all day with Robertson, with my concealed recorder, and because he said that God asked him to run for president, I asked him, with a campaign manager like the Lord, how could you lose? And he said, well, the Lord asked me to run for president, not to win. Out of that run, I created a mailing list of 3 million people. 

The Christian Coalition grew out of Robertson’s presidential campaign, and as Robertson said, now no Republican can run for dog catcher without the Christian Coalition's approval. So, Robertson may be gone, but the dead hand of the Christian Right is running the Republican party — and that was Robertson’s goal.

For those who want to read the full investigation, which was also in my book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, I’m offering a FREE download of the audiobook, in which Al Franken reads the chapter about the ex-Reverend Pat.