Written by Paul Hurst

“America’s Chaplain” and Illinois Pastor, Steve Lee, now has a GiveSendGo account to collect funds for his legal defense.

We at Illinois Family Institute have been raising funds for him too, collecting tax-deductible donations and letting people designate to the Pastor Lee Legal Defense cause.

We have some updates.

Thanks to the support of generous IFI followers and others, bail was raised and the Pastor was not forced to remain in jail. However, his legal defense bills continue to mount, defending against the indictment by Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, who charged him with being part of an organized conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

The “evidence” against him is that he made a couple phone calls and knocked on a couple doors.

How does that make him part of a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization)?

The answer is obvious: it doesn’t.

Nonetheless, DA Willis has lumped this Pastor in with household names like President Trump, Mayor Giuliani and Mark Meadows. We’re told by Lee’s Attorney, David Shestokas, that Pastor Lee has never met President Trump and never even been in the same room with him, Mayor Giuliani or any of the other big names involved in the case. Shestokas explains,

“People need to know that what he is accused of are exercises of the First Amendment, and those cheering this on are cheering on the demise of their own civil rights….”

Rev. Lee has a life-long record of service to the community and nation, in both law enforcement and ministry. He served as Chaplain at Ground Zero after 9/11 as well as serving as ATF Chaplain at Columbine and many other incidents of national significance, such as the Mandalay Bay mass shooting and Hurricane Katrina.

He’s an American hero who has been serving at virtually every chaotic situation in the United States of America in the last 30 years.

Now, adding insult to injury, Chaplain Lee is the target of a petition drive by Faithful America trying to remove him from his own congregation, which is standing behind him. Faithful America is an extreme leftist group that in the past has met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was recently sanctioned by President Biden for

“enabling the wrongful detention of our citizens” and

“causing immeasurable pain and suffering for both the victims and their families.”

Faithful America also built a Noah’s Ark for climate change and demanded that Hobby Lobby provide contraceptives. The group attacked the child sponsorship organization, World Vision, for the cause of same-sex marriage and launched the anti-Catholic opposition to confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

They even used the Southern Poverty Law Center to promote their agenda, an organization whose “Hate Map” was the inspiration for a terrorist shooting spree against the Family Research Council in 2017. IFI is also listed on the SPLC Hate Map. Meanwhile, earlier this year, one of SPLC’s lawyers was arrested and charged with domestic terrorism.

Faithful America benefitted from financial sponsorship of the Citizen Engagement Lab, whose top donors include George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and whose past leadership has included a senior strategist at MoveOn.org and a director of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, an organization that says there’s a duty to bless abortion clinics.

Shame on those who claim to be Christians, who are supporting this petition to remove a shepherd from his flock.

They do so in violation of a myriad of Scriptures, including the prohibition on slander (Eph 4:31), causing division (Rom 16:17), judging another man’s servant (Rom 14:4) and associating with the immoral (1 Cor. 5:9). Let’s not forget Galatians 6:10:

“…do good to all people and especially to those of the household of faith.”

We’re hoping the actual community of faith and everyone else will support the wrongly accused Pastor Lee and donate.

While the attacks on Chaplain Lee appear to be politically motivated, he himself is not.

He stated as recently as 2021 that he had always steered clear of politics due to his involvement with law enforcement and ministry. Now he’s being portrayed as a political operative, even though an Illinois judge actually ruled last year there was not enough evidence to even make him a witness in this case, much less a perpetrator.

The charges, however, are nonetheless very serious — the RICO charge carries a mandatory minimum of 5 years in a Georgia prison and a maximum of 20. For the 70-year-old chaplain, this is a life-altering threat, not to mention an extreme financial burden on him with his hefty defense bills, considering his career choices have been ones of service, not wealth acquisition.

The GiveSendGo account, www.GiveSendGo.com/ChaplainLee and www.IllinoisFamily.org/Contribute are the main sources of funding his Chaplain Lee’s legal defense.

Those preferring to send checks instead may send checks to the Illinois Family Institute, P.O. Box 876, Tinley Park, IL 60477 while noting “Pastor Lee Legal Defense” in the Memo.

Please keep Pastor Steve Lee in your prayers and thank you for your continued and generous support of him and of Illinois Family Institute.