Evangelical Psycho Crook w/ Connections

The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran an almost humorous story on Monday regarding the evangelical preacher and apparent spiritual advisor of Dennis Hastert, K.A. Paul. The opening paragraphs were as follows:

"Voters should oust congressional Republican leaders because U.S. foreign policy is delaying the second coming of Jesus Christ, according to a evangelical preacher trying to influence closely contested political races.

K.A. Paul railed against the war in Iraq on Sunday before a crowd of 1,000 at the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, his first stop on what he hopes is a 30-city campaign."

This is the same guy who claims he has convinced Hastert to step down over the Foley scandal. Today, Mother Jones reports:

"...The two men (Paul and Hastert) withdrew into a private room where, Paul says, he launched into a sermon about what Hastert should do. Paul told Mother Jones that he cited politicians whose reputations suffered when they resisted stepping down: Donald Rumsfeld, Tom DeLay, Bill Clinton. “I said ‘If you don’t do that, the Republicans will lose control of the Congress, you will no longer be Speaker in 30 days, and at the same time they will all blame you because of Foley scandal. You want that for you? You want that to be your life legacy after accomplish so many good things?’ So that’s what convinced him.” ..."

In addition to Hastert, Rumsfeld, Delay, and Clinton, Paul claims to have advised quite the cast of foreign characters as well. Also from today's Mother Jones article:

"Paul boasts that he convinced Liberian ex-dictator Charles Taylor to resign his office; he claims to have ministered to Saddam Hussein, Muammar al-Khaddafi, and Slobodan Milosevic, and to have known al-Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi 'when he was nobody."

Sounds like bull, right? Maybe not. In 2003, The New Yorker reported:

"Charles Taylor, having laid waste to Liberia, has been trying to set the record straight about who persuaded him to surrender his Presidency and go into exile in Nigeria. "I will say that 99% of [the credit] goes to Dr. K. A. Paul alone," he wrote on August 16th, in a letter to the Times.

...Dr. Paul even claims that he arranged, late last year, for Saddam Hussein and his two sons to leave Iraq. But the Bush White House blew it. “I called Karl Rove and left a message. I waited two weeks, but I heard nothing."

It seems The Houston Press is the only media outlet to have looked at Dr. K.A. Paul in any depth. And as you might expect, the deeper one looks, the dirtier he gets. Read on.