Trump-backed pastor Jackson Lahmeyer accused of sexting staffer as Oklahoma primary nears
Screenshots shared by a former campaign fundraiser raise questions about Lahmeyer's personal conduct—and evangelical hypocrisy
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Oklahoma will have its primaries today, which means right-wing Christian Nationalist pastor Jackson Lahmeyer could finally be the Republican nominee for Congress (after a failed previous attempt). But despite an endorsement from Donald Trump, the campaign may have just suffered a major blow after a woman who worked for his campaign said that Lahmeyer—a married father of five—had been sexting her for months… at least until his wife found out.
A quick recap: Lahmeyer is pastor of the internet-friendly Sheridan.Church, based in Tulsa and the founder of “Pastors for Trump,” which was organized to get conservative Christians to support Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The MAGA base loves him because he’s a massive conspiracy theorist. He has said Black Lives Matter was founded by “witchcraft-practicing lesbians,” signed vaccine exemption forms for anyone who became an online member of his church, claimed Dr. Anthony Fauci was a “mass-murdering Luciferian,” said January 6 was an “inside job” by the FBI, claimed that Alex Jones “did nothing wrong,” and fully embraces QAnon… even though he’s been accused of Satanism by other QAnon conspiracists.
He also seeks the “eradication” of Islam from the country and thinks Black women like Jasmine Crockett are guilty of acting “like a GHETTO fool in Congress.”
Soon after Trump nominated Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to take over Kristi Noem’s job as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, there was a flurry of replacements and newly vacant seats, including the one Lahmeyer is now angling for in the House.
Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District is a fairly red district where all the real competition occurs in the GOP primary. The Cook Political Report currently rates it a solid Republican district, meaning Democrats don’t stand a chance. But Lahmeyer has the one thing no one else in his race does: The Trump Stamp of Approval.
That endorsement is what led Caitlin Simmons Key, a former Miss Oklahoma USA and a fundraiser for Lahmeyer's campaign, to post about why she was also supporting him:
… Today, Jackson Lahmeyer received President Donald Trump’s endorsement, and regardless of where anyone lands politically, that is a huge moment in this race.
I support Jackson because I actually KNOW him. I know his family. I see the conversations people don’t see, the work people don’t see, and the heart behind all of it.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years working around politics, it’s this: politics can be ugly… but not every person in politics is.
There are good people trying to do good things, and Jackson is one of them.
She actually KNEW him. She knew his family. She knows he’s a good guy trying to do good things.
And she knew this because the two of them had been texting for months in a way that any white evangelical pastor would say crossed every boundary. She told her story to the right-wing Daily Mail—with the screenshots of their messages to back it up—adding that she remained on Lahmeyer’s payroll even after his wife found the messages.
She says the two of them didn’t have sex. But their text messages were never supposed to be made public because it was clear he would have gone further if he thought he could get away with it, even inviting her to his hotel room. She said no because he was still married to his wife.
‘Eventually the conversations crossed the line of probably what most people would consider appropriate for a married man and a single woman,’ she said.
…
He sent a selfie from his room at a Hyatt Place and floated a 'late invite.' She declined. Key says she was the one urging realism about his marriage. 'And at some point- if u need to get divorced. Then ok,' she texted him. His reply: 'Not right now tho lol.'
…
She put it to him bluntly: ‘U r in love with me and we don’t even have sex.’
‘Well... hahah,’ he replied. ‘I’m a fan of you how about that lol.’
‘Nobody knew how close we were,’ says Key. ‘Not one person on the planet besides me and him.’
When his wife found Lahmeyer’s texts, she was predictably furious—and lashed out against… Key. As if this were a one-sided interaction.
‘How dare you,’ Kendra wrote on May 9. ‘Don’t you ever contact my husband again. He told me everything.’
Key denied it. ‘I am not romantically involved with him. At all. If he feels differently towards me, that is nothing I have control of. I am dating someone!’
‘You are a liar,’ Kendra replied. ‘So just stop. You are out of our lives, don’t ever contact my husband again. Do you understand? Im not kidding. It was romantic, I saw it.’
…
'You are a home wrecking whore. Did you enjoy ruining our family?' Lahmeyer's wife Kendra wrote to Key on May 9: 'He has 5 kids.'
It’s not clear how much, if any, responsibility she puts on Lahmeyer himself, even though he apparently told Key to delete their messages (she didn’t). Did his wife know Key was still on the payroll, presumably so she wouldn’t go running to a British tabloid about their relationship?
In another interaction between the two, he told her she was “super thin and very cute” before leaving Mar-a-Lago to go to a strip club. As conservative Christians do. (Don’t worry, though. He said no to the offer of cocaine.)
Her response was incredible:
Her reply now reads as prophecy: ‘Jackson if u become congressman & if ever got caught u would be headlines.’ Then, one word: ‘Pastor.’
Yes. There would be lots of headlines. Because when you have a right-wing MAGA preacher who promotes “family values” and Trump, the inevitable hypocrisy is bound to be a major part of the campaign. It’s just a matter of which flavor. (Just ask Mark Robinson.) Is Lahmeyer a Christian who wants to help the “least of these” while persecuting refugees? Someone who promises fiscal responsibility while allowing Trump and his family to practically rob the Treasury? Someone who champions “pro-life” policies while opposing programs that keep people healthy and alive? Or a pastor who denounces same-sex relationships while trying to score himself a mistress?
I don’t normally care about these MAGA cultists’ private lives when it doesn’t affect anything else. Former Oklahoma official Ryan Walters recently got divorced. It wasn’t a scandal. There was no evidence of hypocrisy (other than the hypocrisy of an evangelical getting divorced at all despite pushing for covenant marriages). So it wasn’t a story. This, on the other hand, is a secret Lahmeyer didn’t want anyone to know about.
When the story was published Sunday night, Lahmeyer responded by blaming the messenger. He didn’t deny the texts. He just called the story “distorted”—without going into any details about what the Daily Mail purportedly exaggerated—and suggested the story may have been “paid for.” There’s no evidence of that. He also claimed he handled the matter privately and that his wife “may” have more to say soon.
Notice he doesn’t say the story is a lie.
And then his church canceled its Sunday service. Because Jesus can wait if the alternative is being in the spotlight after a story like this breaks.
Will any of this matter in today’s primary? Probably not. Lahmeyer’s base consists of white evangelical voters and they don’t actually give a shit if their most prominent pastors break their own moral codes. They’ll just chalk it up to sin and then celebrate whenever the pastor gets around to his forgiveness tour. Only Democrats are ever held to any standards these days. It’s the Christian Way™.
It should matter, though, because Lahmeyer has built his entire public career around judging other people’s morality. Yet here’s evidence of him violating his own supposed standards and what’s his response? Denial and deflection.
You know how all of these people would react if a Democrat did anything like this. They would spend months treating it as proof of moral corruption. But because Lahmeyer is a Republican, the rules don’t matter. His supporters on Facebook are already calling it a distraction or a lie.
That’s the hypocrisy at the heart of Christian Nationalism.
These right-wing whack-job pastors don’t offend me half as much as do the people who delegate their thinking to them.
Obligatory: Not a drag queen.