Freethought-Now

Seven years.

That’s how long it took the U.S. Department of Labor to provide the Freedom From Religion Foundation with a small set of public records we requested in 2019 — only 41 pages of lightly redacted emails. But those pages offer a revealing glimpse into the entanglement between President Trump’s Cabinet members and Ralph Drollinger, the Christian nationalist founder of Capitol Ministries whose bible studies targeted members of Congress and White House Cabinet officials.

The most disturbing email is from July 10, 2019, when then-Labor Secretary Alex Acosta was under intense bipartisan pressure over his role in securing a notorious sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein. Acosta would soon resign. But at the height of the scandal, Drollinger was neither making biblical arguments against letting a wealthy, well-connected child rapist off easy nor was he pushing for accountability and transparency. Instead, Drollinger was urging Acosta to stay.

Drollinger told Acosta: “You HANG IN THERE and don’t resign,” adding that he was “behind you 100%.”

The full email is remarkable. After telling Acosta that the Cabinet bible study had prayed for him that morning, Drollinger says he knows Acosta would never have “let a predator off” if he had evidence to convict him.

Here’s why that’s absurd: Twelve years earlier, in 2007, when Acosta was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, he shelved an extensive 32-count, 56-page draft indictment against Epstein in favor of a nonprosecution agreement and an 18-month jail sentence with a “work release” program allowing Epstein to leave jail during the day. Acosta agreed to “work release” for someone worth hundreds of millions of dollars who pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor. This was plainly special treatment for an ultrawealthy monster, allowing Epstein to continue to abuse children due to his status and connections.

Drollinger’s 2019 email was sent four days after Epstein’s (second) arrest, and exactly one month before he died in federal prison. At that point, prosecutors had interviewed dozens of underage girls, as well as housekeepers and other staff, who all corroborated reports of Epstein’s rampant abuse, which reportedly continued, more or less uninterrupted, for over a decade after Acosta’s deal with Epstein. Yet even when a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Congress had recognized Acosta’s complicity in Epstein’s crimes, Drollinger thought he knew better. He praised Acosta’s character and explicitly urged him not to resign. He told Acosta the country needed him and termed him a “dear friend.”

And Drollinger’s support for Acosta did not stop with the “don’t resign” email. Later that same day, he praised Acosta’s public statement, framing it in explicitly Christian language and telling him he had handled it perfectly. Then, after Acosta announced his resignation, Drollinger emailed Acosta again, copying other Cabinet bible study participants, saying he and his wife Danielle were saddened but respected the decision and asking Acosta to come to the next Cabinet bible study so they could pray with and encourage him.

All this from Drollinger, who brags about his continuing Cabinet bible study effectuating a cultural shift “away from secular-based woke ideology back to a biblically based ideology.” Fair enough, I suppose, if Drollinger venerates the biblical stories most Christians distance themselves from, in which God orders his followers to commit genocide except for sparing young girls, whom he commands to be captured as sex slaves.

This observation is tongue-in-cheek, of course, but it’s worth noting that Drollinger’s Cabinet bible studies are both partisan and truly awful. The records FFRF finally received show lessons that were policy-adjacent, politically charged and deeply troubling.

For example, on June 13, 2019, Drollinger emailed Acosta and Russell Vought, Office of Management and Budget director and primary architect of Project 2025, a draft from his “Government and Economics Series” bible study on debt, money supply and inflation. He asked for their “input/comments/additions/edits/best thinking” and even invited them to write sidebars for the study. This bible study reveals Drollinger’s extremist religious ideology, with attacks on government assistance and social programs. Just as Drollinger’s older analysis on immigration suggests Jesus was more of a “hate your neighbor” type, this bible study draft shows that Drollinger was working to persuade senior U.S. officials that Jesus would want them to give money to the superwealthy rather than to the poor.

The topics themselves are telling:

• “How Are You At Handling Betrayal?”
• “Put off the Evil Culture of Deception.”
• “Becoming More Like the 12 Amongst the 535 in 2020.”

Rather than bringing a generic bible study to officials too busy to attend church, Drollinger’s lessons are a naked attempt to shape senior officials into making Drollinger’s preferred policy decisions. It should come as no surprise that Drollinger’s chosen lessons always find a way to justify the White House’s agenda.

This religious imposition into the top levels of the federal government is precisely why FFRF has warned for years about Drollinger’s government-focused ministry. Public officials have every right to pray privately, attend houses of worship and hold personal religious beliefs. But the Constitution draws a line between private religious exercise and government favoritism toward a religious ministry. These records show a private Christian nationalist operative embedded in the social, spiritual and policy life of Cabinet officials, using that position to influence, encourage and legitimize those in power.

The Acosta emails make that danger concrete. At the very moment when a Cabinet secretary was facing accountability for a scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein, Drollinger did not counsel humility, public responsibility or concern for survivors. He instead offered a religious shield. He vouched for Acosta’s character because they were bible study buddies. He told him not to resign. He said the country needed this cheerleader and enabler for Jeffrey Epstein.

Even seven years late, these records are relevant. They show how access works under the Trump regime and how a sectarian ministry cultivated influence with powerful government officials. And they show in Acosta’s case how that influence could be deployed not to hold power accountable, but to protect it. And even seven years later, little appears to have changed. Drollinger is still running his bible studies with senior officials, while his students from the first Trump era, such as Russell Vought (once again the director of OMB), are more powerful than ever. It’s a compelling story of why mixing church and state is so treacherous.

Disclaimer: The views in this column are of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

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