on fbi and doj action surrounding the 2016 presidential election and the clinton email investigation. our live coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3 thursday. you can tune in on at c-span.org or use the free c-span radio app. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," freelance journalist tom dunkel. nkel discusses his "washington post" story about the reverend sun myung moon and the church they run in newfoundland, pennsylvania. ♪ dunkel, but i'm going

to talk to you about your magazine piece in a second, but i want to read back to you what you say in your biography on your website. "i have written about politics, adventure travel, sports and health madison in formats ranging from long narratives to essays. i climbed mount kilimanjaro with a world-class mountaineer, hiked the arizona desert with senator john mccain, tagged along with high-tech bounty hunters chasing skips, and drove bruce willis' dodge charger while mr. willis rode shotgun." break all that down. why put that in your bio? tom: i am a writer who has never focused on one thing. i have been a general list and hopscotching from topic to topic through my career. and there are certain advantages to being a specialist in your reporting. there has never been any one topic area that has grabbed me hard enough and long enough, and for me, part of the joy of reporting is collecting people and experiences. that was a cross-section of some of the experiences i have been

fortunate enough to have. brian: when did you do mount kilimanjaro and why? tom: the simple why is because it was for "travel and leisure." that was 1999 or 2000, and what was intriguing about the piece, you may be familiar with scott fisher. he wound up dying on mount everest. it was in the "into thin air" book which turned into a movie. he had a mountaineering copy, and adventure travel company. rather than take the main tourist route, he was hiking up the back of kilimanjaro, bushwhacking our way up. it was also an opportunity to hike with him. the sadness of that was he was a really good traveling companion. i enjoyed him. really good photographer,

affable guy. and subsequent to our hike, he actually asked me to go along on the trip on everest. i am not a technical climber, but you can get as high as i think 21,000 feet to the upper base camp, and at the time it did not work out schedule wise. i remember being at home one night and getting a call, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, from his assistant. as soon as i heard the voice on my answering machine, and picked up the phone, if you get a call at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning from a mountaineer's assistant, it is not good. and at that point they were still missing on the mountain. but he was a wonderful guy. i would have loved to hike with ave hiked with him again. brian: what about crossing the desert with john mccain? when did that happen? tom: that was when he ran for president the first time. i was under contract for a magazine. we were doing a series of profiles of candidates in the

election cycle. i spent about six months on and off with john. and at one point, i sure cindy am mccain was not crazy about this, but he said we are going to do a family vacation, bouncing around arizona and doing some town meetings and some hiking. so we were in canyon de shea doing some hiking. there was john and cindy and three of the kids. i am sure cindy was not crazy about having a reporter bouncing along in the car for five or six days, but she was quite nice about it. was, john is good with reporters. he was fun to spend time with. brian: what about the bounty hunters? tom: that was a "washington post" piece about two years ago. my editor at the post is a wonderful guy. he wanted to do a piece on bounty hunters, high-tech bounty hunters, for a while. they were having trouble finding

a person to cooperate, so he finally threw the story to me. and i was just fortunate enough to find a bondsman in arlington, outside of d.c. he uses bounty hunters to track down guys who don't pay for their veil after he bails them out. the unusual thing about that was we were tracking down a guy who was in long island, as i recall. ,nd the funny thing about again, these are guys who skipped out on their bail bondsman and stuck them for $20,000, $30,000, but allure of facebook -- a "skip" is what they call someone who has skipped bond, and they can find a lot of them on facebook, and create an identity of a young, hot chick, and start a dialogue and you will get enough information to

track them down. that's what we did. brian: on may 27, i got my sunday "washington post," and you wrote the cover story about, among other things, this gentleman that is on the cover. who is this fellow? tom: his proper name is unjin moon, also goes by the american name of sean moon. he is one of the sons of reverend moon from the unification church. and reverend moon died in 2012 and left confusing signals on what to do with the church after his passing. his son sean had been tapped by reverend moon a couple of times in ceremonies as his heir and successor, but very amorphous terminology.

when exactly do you succeed him? after his death, after his wife dies? and there was a family breakup after that, and eventually sean and his other brother, kukjin, who goes by the name of justin, essentially broke away from the family and founded their own up in pennsylvania. parts of the unification church community have been torn between staying with the main church, which is now headed by reverend moon's wife, or to navigate and travel with the new church. and the new church, as you know from reading the piece, is ideologically quite a bit different from unification church. i am sure we will get into the details on how they are different. brian: for someone who is never heard of reverend moon, here is some video of him preaching some years ago. [video clip]

moon: america must return to the true founding spirit of the nation. america must return to godism, and absolutely god-centered ideology. brian: 1976. who was he? tom: reverend moon is a fascinating character. if you look at his life story, regardless of what you think about unification church, his life's journey was incredible. he grew up, he was born in 1920 , as i recall, in what is now north korea. it had been annexed by japan. in poverty, manages to work his way through school. i think he got a scholarship to attend college in tokyo and

studied electrical engineering. and got involved a little bit with the korean independence movement in college. ran into some problem with japanese authorities. gets his degree, goes back to korea, and when he was 15 years old, he had a vision where he was visited by christ and told to complete jesus's mission. finishes college, comes back to korea, basically starts his own church, and the pictures of it little hovel of a church made out of cardboard. he got in trouble with the authorities in north korea. there is always some dispute about elements of reverend moon's biography. his version of the biography is that the korean authorities considered him an agitator and he was jailed several times in korea.

he finally got sent to a work camp for two years. he was mining coal. brian: this was the north. tom: it is still the north, but this is world war ii korea, right after -- well, actually, at that point, north korea was split. he eventually migrates to south korea. there is a lot of traffic from north korea to south korea. church.n, starts at finally moves to seoul and starts a church. mid to late 1950's, it was a conservative christian message, as you can gather from that clip. very family centered, sanctity of marriage. he always, homosexuality,

anything outside of traditional marriage, was anathema to him. but he establishes a falling and eventually has 30 churches in seoul and it keeps growing. the controversy with reverend moon and the unification church was some of their aggressive recruiting methods, among other things. but the church snowballs and grows, and by the late 1960's he decides to come to the u.s. and his vision was to unite, again, back to the biblical mandate in his dream, was to unite the whole world under one religion, and he considered himself the second messiah. he comes to the u.s., gets a little more involved politically. his group marriages i think were the things he was most known for, but the moonies were a

presence everywhere in the states. they were at airpots, in the streets. they were selling trinkets and jewelry, but a tremendous amount of money was coming to the church. also, reverend moon made a lot of contacts in korea with the korean military. his vision of the church did not stop at the doors of the church. his notion was that businesses, and they wound up fueling a and funding a number of holding companies and businesses, he considered as part and parcel of his church great it was essentially the fuel to drive the church. and it was in 1978, there was a congressional subcommittee that investigated the moonies. douglas frazier was a congressman from minnesota. the intelligence subcommittees in the house, and they did a thorough investiation issued whatn and they called the fraser report. in their terminology, you could not regard the unification

church as a church. they called it the moon organization. that is how wide the umbrella spread. i tracked down an old private detective, now retired, for this story, who had looked into the church back then. he said they were the largest private landholder in the world at one point. the tentacles of their company companies went into everything from manufacturing soda, to sushi, to supplying anti-aircraft parts to the south korean army. so moon had built this empire, and then eventually after the fraser report was out, they suggested there should be a further congressional investigation into him, which there was not. but the irs looked into him, and the outcome of that is that he was found guilty of tax evasion. i think it was about $162,000, if i recall.

serving 13 years -- months in federal prison in 13 connecticut and became somewhat of a cause célèbre for perhaps the government being too aggressive with their prosecution of him. while he's in church, ever the businessman, he makes plans to found the "washington times" newspaper, which he did after he gets out, and the moon family takes great pride in that. , including sean and justin moon. they regard what he did with the "washington times" as the first powerful alternative conservative voice in american media, predating in their minds, the precursor to breitbart, info infowars, the drudge report, whatever. they felt reverend moon never got full credit for that.

but by the late 1990's, there had been a tell-all book written by one of his daughters-in-law. brian: he had how many total children with the two wives? tom: there's also talk of a third wife in his early days. but he and his second wife, they had 14 children. one child died in childbirth. 13 lived into adulthood. three of those children died early in adulthood. one son died in a car accident. another son died of heart complications from alcohol and and a third son committed suicide. so the moon family was not absolved from tragedy. brian: he died as you say in

2012. he was 92 years old. at that point -- before we do that, i want people to see what sean looks like. and sean and justin, these two sons, are harvard grads. tom: yes. sean has a harvard extension degree, has a b.a., and a masters of divinity from harvard. justin has magna cum laude economics grad from harvard. and then an mba from the university of miami. brian: this is in newfoundland, pennsylvania. caller: tom: that is were the church is based, yeah. brian: what is the church called? tom: it is called sanctuary church, also rod of iron ministries is kind of a subtitle. rod of ministries. brian: we go back to the picture of sean from earlier, is that the rod in his hand? tom: yes, that is an ar-15

semiautomatic rifle. brian: gold. tom: gold-plated, and it works. sort of the crux of his ministry and the source of some controversy, and it is relatively new. location --and this in 2012, they have the split and it takes him a little while to figure out -- he has a fracturing with his family. he was active. sean is an interesting guy. after he got out of harvard with his masters degree, he actually was practicing buddhism for about eight to 10 years. still on good terms with the family, but while the family is involved in the unification church, he is off pursuing buddhism. he met with, actually, the dalai lama invited him to spend some time in india with the dalai lama. he comes back to the church

shortly before reverend moon's death, got involved -- about two years before. he got involved in the church, and then when reverend moon dies, there is this big fracturing. that was his time in the wilderness, if you will. he finally decides to start his own ministry, comes to the u.s. his brother justin already had a business in the u.s. as part of the unification business empire, if you will. he had a gun manufacturing company. this is justin. and it was based, headquartered in new york state, but he was looking to move to pennsylvania for certain reasons. there were some gun restrictions passed by the new york state legislature. he was thinking about pennsylvania by that time. sean is thinking of starting his own church at that time, so about 2012, early 2013, they are moving to pennsylvania. he is actually -- sean is doing

his ministry out of a private house at that time. then he did some church services in the best western hotel. by 2014, he opens an actual physical church, but it was not until last fall, which surprised me, that his ministry takes an unusual turn. as he tells it, he was reading the book of revelation in the biblical -- in the bible, which is -- not a biblical scholar, but it is essentially an almost hallucinogenic or fantasmagoric vision of the future. it was written in 1 a.d. and we are not even certain who wrote it. it was thought it was the apostle john, but biblical scholars are not sure. it is a vision of the epic clash between good and evil, seven seals, and dragons, and false

prophets, all allegory or literal depending on how you want to read it. brian: let's watch some video sean moon in his church up in newfoundland. [begin clip] >> you say, oh yes, we support gun ownership because it is a constitutional right in america. ♪ and they serve a utilitarian purpose if we get attacked. no, you pieces of trash, you stupid idiots, it is the center of christianity. of christianity. it is the center of jesus' own vision for his kingdom. brian: now the crown on his head is made of what? tom: one of his, one of the followers of the church made it out of rifle shells, the gunpowder has been removed, and polished up. it is very symbolic of his message. he had read the book of revelation just last fall. book of revelations makes a number of references to what is called a "rod of iron."

sean interprets that literally as not just a rifle, but specifically this ar-15. i have asked him, why is the rod of iron a rifle? why not a crowbar or whatever? there is not a good answer to that. but in his mind, he glommed onto that as the biblical mandate to bear arms. and, one of the tenants of sanctuary church -- this is different from unification church, one of the tenets of their belief system is that we are all personal sovereigns in god's kingdom, and you have a responsibility to protect yourself, protect your family, and god needs you to protect his kingdom, as well.

so the notion of individual sovereignty is very important to them. part of sovereignty, again, is being able to defend yourself and prepare yourself both for apocalypse and end times, but also just in your daily life. so the ar-15 is central to their religion and obviously what makes them controversial. you can think of the unification church that if the nra established a religion, this is what it would be like. brian: here is a minute of the church blessing ceremony. this is february 28 of this year. [video clip] ♪ ["hallelujah chorus" plays]

brian: i can hear people watching right now saying to themselves a number of things. one, why is "q&a" doing this, what difference does this make? but just as importantly, why did tom dunkel do this, and why did

the "washington post" put this on the front of their sunday washington post magazine? what purpose of this? tom: what we were interested in and what we found intriguing is that what is going on at sanctuary church and up in pennsylvania is a co-mingling of a lot of undercurrents in the country, of religion, politics, and guns to a degree we have not seen before. it is still a small church, no question about that. sean has a worldwide following, my guess would be maybe 200 people in the congregation total up in pennsylvania, and 500 to 2000 worldwide. 1000, these days, you can follow a church on youtube. all of the sermons are webcast every week. but it is that, that co-mingling of passion in america, and what

does this say about us as a culture, and what -- is this any -- is this any precursor of what we might see down the road? when you let the genie out of the bottle of mixing guns and religion in almost any society, it has usually been problematic, it has usually been problematic, and throw politics into the mix. will other, will other -- will we see other splinter church groups like this? will he be able to control his congregation? will it grow? also the language coming out of the church is very disturbing in some ways, and i've talked to sean and justin about this. i am currently working on a book about german resistance in world war ii. what resonated with me, reading about world war ii recently, is that a lot of the language of where you describe others as demons, as parasites, as

leeches, as subhumans, a lot of that, intentional or not, and you can give them the benefit of the doubt it is not intentional, is the language of fascism, which is becoming more common in our vocabulary as a country. we were looking at this as a kind of petri dish of those trends coming together. but also did not want to demonize these people. i mean, we did not want to cast them out as sort of cartoonish people. the objective of the story was to send someone up there, that someone being me, to spend a little time with these people, with the congregation, and try to get a sense of why this is appealing to people. but also to get a little bit of what answers we can come up with but also to get a better window on that church assuming you look at the visuals, guns, church,

these are crazy people. it is not that simple. brian: i want to show his brother justin. who is older? justin or sean? tom: justin is older. justin is 47, i believe. sean is 38. brian: and he is also, as i said earlier harvard graduate? , tom: yes. both educated guys. sellingnd he is the one the guns? tom: yes. brian: let's watch a little bit of him. [video clip] ♪ >> look at what i have got here today. my god, take a look at this. this is a vfr. an octagonal barrel, look at that, it even has my initials on it. jm. brian: where is this store? tom: the store is in a little town about 15 miles from the church, in greeley,

pennsylvania. rural pennsylvania. he, sean decided to move his -- or, pardon me justin decided to , move his business there for a couple of reasons, one of which was pennsylvania being more gun friendly of a state than new york. he still has a manufacturing facility up in worcester, mess. -- mass. the plan is to move it all to pennsylvania eventually. now he has a large showroom there, and he also designs guns, so he has a little research facility underneath the showroom. he became fascinated with guns as a kid. reverend moon was an outdoorsman. he hunted, but guns were not part of the unification church message. justin's story goes that he shot a pistol for the first time at 14 and just fell in love with guns. and while he was at harvard was

kind of tinkering around and designing guns on his own. he wanted to build a really small, compact pistol, which he wound up doing. shortly after he got out of harvard, in fact it might have been while he was getting his mba he started a little , business, kahr arms, and eventually designed a very lightweight pistol. it was only 26 ounces, which apparently was considered a breakthrough in firearms technology. but it was popular enough that a lot of police departments started buying these things as second weapons for officers to grew on them. the public gobbled them up. i think he is about the 15th largest gun manufacturer in the united states. a parenthetical thought, when you write an article like this, a lot of material gets left on the cutting room floor.

pennsylvania, there is according , to the nra, something like 900,000 nra members within a 300 mile radius of harrisburg, pennsylvania, the capital of the state. and when i was up there for the story, i came across -- which i found fascinating -- i came upon another gun manufacturer in pennsylvania that actually manufactures a line of rifles for kids. and they have two lines that they call the chipmunk rifle and the cricket rifle. i went on to the website, it is called keystone sporting goods or something. i went on their website, and there is a letter from a dad to the owners of the company saying , "your guns are terrific, they are lightweight. they are accurate. i bought one for my five-year-old and seven-year-old, and i think this is just terrific." and as a non-gun owner, i am

thinking, what is more discomforting about that, the fact there is a company making a line of rifles for five-year-olds, or the fact that there is parents out there buying guns for five-year-olds? but this is part of the backdrop of what is going on up there with sanctuary church. and that, the message of guns, i asked justin and sean over and over, i mean, -- these are responsible people. the people i met in the congregation were decent folk. i did not get any wild eyed crazies up there, but why are guns resonating so deeply? upas at a church service there, and he does, you know, they do high-tech church services, visuals and slides. i remember, there were slides on homicide, rates of homicide

versus concealed weapon ownership. and another one on child fatalities versus handgun availability. and this is in a church as part of his sermon. why has that so bled into the character of the church that this becomes so central to their message? i find that intriguing. i don't have a firm answer for you on that, but other than that it speaks to a certain dissatisfaction with both the world and with our country. it is a very -- again, lovely people with a very dark message. at times it gets to be almost dystopian about the country is , falling apart, the world is falling apart, and you better have a gun to protect yourself. brian: here is a political

from august 30, 2016. what you write about in your book. if you look closely, there is eric trump, the son of donald trump. [video clip] [indiscernible] >> the right to bear arms. [indiscernible] >> [indiscernible] absolutely everything. brian: sorry about that. it's not a great video, not great audio. but that was eric trump speaking. what was he doing there? tom: he, i believe it was august 29, 2016, toward the end of august. brian: august 30. [speaking simultaneously] tom: it is a campaign stop. and justin told me that it was

the hand of god. he got a call out of the blue from the trump campaign saying eric wants to come. keep in mind, you are in, entering the final leg of a campaign. pennsylvania is a swing state. pennsylvania has a lot of gun owners, and that would be a way to court some votes. it is -- the subsequence of that, part of when i was reporting the story, they held a trump thank you dinner. the church was one of the sponsors for it, and this was again up in pennsylvania. as you get into the deeper -- again, this is that crossroads of religion and politics. the moons, meaning justin and sean, will tell you that god's hand was at work in the

presidential campaign, and they consider donald trump a vehicle, [laughter] that god is using to bring about what they consider god's kingdom on earth. brian: here is some video from that thank you dinner that was held back on february 24 of this year. [video clip] >> to believe the lie of the devil and trust the tempting promises of politicians to solve the world's problems, more bureaucracy. a servant of the people, the government through the institution of the people, what if overtime becomes more entrenched, more deeply rooted, more powerful. this is a dystopian price paid and how on earth [indiscernible] followers and media, desire to

create a future and destiny. brian: on the back wall, the name larry pratt, i don't know how to characterize him. he is stronger in his attitude about guns even than the nra. was this a fundraiser for something? were they -- how do these -- you know, go back to an old statistic, that supposedly the reverend moon spent over $1 billion for the first 30 years of the "washington times" here of his money. you talked about how he made his money. do these two guys have his money? tom: no. that would be the -- they are not particularly -- particularly justin is a good businessman, so he has money. in fact he is the head of a foundation that, a foundation in memory of their younger brother philip who committed suicide. they've got it. and that foundation supplies a

law of the money that is supporting sanctuary church. the actual figures in the piece, my recollection was over 600,000 one year and over $400,000 another year. brian: the land -- tom: they own the church and there are also contributions from members. there is not a tithing. you know, there is voluntary monetary support from the members. but the supposition is that justin is an important financial pillar of the church. and he is very active in the church. but there has been a divorce from from the family, , businesswise. and in fact as i mentioned, , justin originally opened his gun business as part of the unification church business empire. he negotiated a separation from that so that he is totally removed and is now a self standing business.

and -- brian: let me give you a quote from your own article. shawn called his mother "whore of babylon." and she is still running the unification church? tom: yes. yes. brian: what is that about? tom: well, that speaks to the degree of family fracture. "whore of babylon" is actually a term that comes out of the book of revelation, and it connotes a the trail of god, etc. anddeeper fisher here is, forgive me, the korean names i sometimes mangle. ja han is their mother, now head of the unification church, which now calls itself the family federation for world peace and unification. they did a little rebranding. she when she took over the , church, and her notion is that she was married to reverend moon for 52 years, that they were partners in his ministry and

therefore she would be the likely and his designated successor. brian: she is 75 now. tom: i believe. yeah. she was younger, yes she was 20 , years younger than he was. that would be the math. she initiated some changes in the church. some of the language is more gender-neutral. they will refer to god as parent rather than father. she also, which was one of the more controversial things -- reverend moon left behind a large body of written theological work. one of which is called eight great textbooks. and his wife felt that that was not approachable enough, not user-friendly enough, so she actually edited them down to three textbooks which, among some followers of the unification church, was considered heretical. the sons consider it heresy for her to have essentially taken the church away from sean, the contention being that reverend

moon meant for sean to be his successor. the fracture is so bad that -- the unification church, like many in asian societies, believe afterlife, thee spirit world. what the sons did, i think this is about two years ago, they in essence divorced their mother from their father, and they held summary -- ceremony from reverend moon, now deceased, and married him to one of, supposedly one of his earliest followers from the 1950's. mrs. kahn -- k-a-h-n -- is her surname. so essentially, they married their father to another woman. taken it aan has step further. he gave a sermon on how unhappy the marriage was, although the

two parents, as they were called, were the spiritual heads of the church. he says it was actually a very contentious and unhappy marriage. and then justin has taken it a step further, where he actually that hiscly said mother should be executed. for the crime of heresy. and the moon brothers are very direct in their language. and i, i certainly give them credit in their candor. them separately for long sit-down interviews and i said, i understand in the heat of the moment, when you're speaking in public, sometimes you can say things you don't mean. you could be speaking figuratively rather than literally. and i asked are there things you , want to take back? some of the language can be very cutting and very harsh.

and specific to his mother, i said, you know, "justin, do you stand by that?" he said, "listen i am not a , politician or running for office. it is on the record and i stand by what i say." some of the moon children i spoke to, their sister, imjin moon, who has not spoken publicly about this before, it took a little bit of negotiating and soul-searching on her part for her to even speak in public about this for the article. she still harbors a notion that the family will somehow reconcile. and she had a lovely quote that we had to cut for space, to get down to deadline time, but she memory, memoryt is stronger -- love is stronger than memory.

and she, she said, i have great capacity -- great faith in my mother's capacity to love her children. she still hopes that somehow the two branches of the family are going to reconcile both theologically and personally. brian: where does mother live? tom: she is primarily in korea now. the moons built a spectacular, what they call a peace palace, about two hours north of seoul, it is actually modeled on the u.s. capitol. it is this beautiful alabaster palace. she spends most of her time there. brian: who owns the "washington times?" tom: washington times is still owned by the unification church. brian: what is the circulation today? tom: to be honest, i don't know the current circulation. it is still a viable conservative voice. -- i not, it doesn't have

am not even sure if they are doing a print edition anymore, i think it is mostly online. brian: it is still in print, we get it along with everything else. tom: they don't have their resources, the resources -- the commitment is still there, but when reverend moon was alive, that was, that was his important stepchild. brian: explain this video. a lee moon, who is sean's wife, talking. [video clip] >> i know about, when he asked me to do something, it is actually not a personal thing that he make me do it, because he want me to do it or wants to pressure me to make him look good, or you know to oppress me , or whatever, those negative it -- is not negative reasons. i know, i trust him enough that when he says something, he actually has a very specific

reason, and he do that has it is good for nation, and it is good for me. brian: how many children do they have? tom: they have five. brian: how many does justin have? tom: seven. brian: what was she saying there? tom: i don't know the question, but it is, my guess is the question have something to do with the role of women in the church. it is a very patriarchal church, and, but the terminology sometimes can get conflated and misunderstood. and again, the language can be quite strong, and if you read, there is other things that justin and sean have said about women that would speak to a subservient role. >> but they speak of women having an obligation -- and again, this is all -- marriage is central to this religion. so to be a bachelor or

unmarried woman is almost unthinkable to them. brian: and they have these mass weddings? tom: those are pretty much a relic of the past. the unification church doesn't do it anymore, and certainly not the sanctuary church. but they speak of women having an obligation to honor the husband and respect the husband. but at the same time, they are very empowering with women as well, to the point of even martial arts training and such in terms of confidence and self-reliance. so the language can sound a little harsh in terms of the role of women, but it is not quite as -- these are not shy women up there. brian: let me show you a picture of an older woman holding an ar-15, you can tell me what it is, sitting in assume a church. we will put it up on the screen. you no doubt have seen this

picture before? tom: yes. that was at the blessing ceremony. brian: why do they need to have a rifle or ar-15? tom: it is the symbolism. that was the ceremony that got a lot of nationwide and even international attention. that was february 28th. he ceremony itself -- again, without getting too deeply into it, they have stages of blessings for different events including marriage. all these people at that ceremony were couples that were already married. they were getting another level of blessing, kind of renewing , ir vows in front of sean who goes by second king. he is now king of the church, and his wife. in some cases, women who were widowed were there again because you have an active, very active spirit world. but they were there in memory

of their husbands as well. again, this gets into the co-mingling of guns and religion. they were not blessing guns. that was one of the misconceptions of that ceremony. but as part of the ceremony, sean was encouraging people to bring ar-15's with them to the ceremony. the proviso there as you may ave noticed, the triggers were zip tied and there were no bullets in the magazines of the rifles. but it speaks to the importance of self-defense and to your individual sovereignty and that of church. brian: is this a tax-free institution? and the 501-c-3 corporation or whatever way they structure a church? is that the same thing with the

gun shop and all that? tom: the gun shop would be a private business. -3-c.hurch would be a 501 brian: what is to prevent us from inventing a church and saying you have to carry a gun and putting a crown on your head with bullets in it? tom: well, that is the question. there is what is called a johnson amendment in the tax code, name the after lyndon johnson. i believe that was adopted in the 50's, which says as a non-profit, particularly a church, you cannot endorse candidates and be overtly political. that is rarely enforced. this is a church that really tip-toes that line. fact, they made a point

during the last presidential election of casting it that god was watching this election and that god was judging how we were going to vote. the ast this in terms of biblical story of the garden of eden. brian: let me wade through some of the language that you quoted them as saying. this case, it is sean on al gore, a fricking nut bag. sean on 9/11, false flag. sean on hollywood liberals. the most despicable, thielbarring, con i'ving, man plating, evil, wicked, demons on the planet. justin on the united nations, is a tanic. on welfare recipients. parasites. there are a lot of parasites in the democratic party. literally round them up, put them in prison and execute

them. tom: i don't know where that particular notion got into his head. they are very inflammatory with their language. i specifically asked justin about this. i said why the hot rhetoric? s notion was well -- because so many of the people he disagrees with are classified as satanic. he said i am a christian, a believer, and i speak in the language of the church, satanic and demons. est contention was i speak this way among my fell owes. if you had a group of liberals together and they talk politics, they would use language similar to this. i don't think in some measure the church appreciates, meaning sanctuary church, appreciates that rhetoric. the danger of this is you have -- where is your responsibility

for that message and what it might do to other people? a perfect case in point. we had the situation here in the ngton, pizza-gate, pizza parlor on connecticut in e that for some reason alt-right conservative circles, the rumor got out that hillary clinton was running a pedophile ex slave rung under this pizza parlor. a show was repeating this, and that message gets out there. a poor guy down in north carolina believes this. he drove up to washington with an ar-15, and he was not a sanctuary church member. i don't mean to imply that connection. but he went into atomic pizza and shot the place up because he was looking for these child sex slaves that were being held under connecticut avenue.

he is now doing four years in prison because of. that i have spoken to some members that have left the church who were concerned about the messaging, and the hotness of that rhetoric. you can't control those words after you speak them to how it affects your congregation, or maybe even people satellite following your conjugation, not members. that is the problem with that rhetoric. brian: lasty, sean moon, citing info wars, which is alex jones out of texas, 30 seconds of video, this is mentioning george saros. >> there you kuo. we knew they were trying to set the stage up because they were even throwing their own people under the bus as sort of sacrificial laps, like al franken. they had photos of him grabbing a woman's breasts and groping her clearly when she didn't want to be groped.

but now it is coming out that saros is the funder of these allegations. absolutely huge. tom: george sauros is a favorite whipping boy of the sanctuary church. i sat there in a service. the same hot language toward margaret sanger, that she was a racist and hated blacks. sauros was a neas, and this is archer alt-right thing floating around. george was 14 years old at the end of world war ii. they have pumped this up that he was a neas. brian: he is jewish. tom: yes, and a funder of liberal causes. he and hillary clinton are

family talk radio villains if you will. but it is very much a part of their message. it is going to be interesting watching the church going forward. number one, will they lose control of their message with some of their members, or can they -- they are tip-toeing a really dangerous line. again, when you use politics with the words of satanic and demons, which they did in the ast election with ms. clinton. she was the fallen eve. oprah win friday is satanic. jimmy kimmel is satanic. maybe they are speaking figuratively in their minds, but when that language gets out there, and you mix it with guns, and particularly with an anti-government message -- the roots of their anti-government sentiments go back to their father's experience. brian: we only have a couple of minutes. if you got in a car here in washington, d.c., which you did, how long does it take you

to get to newfoundland, pennsylvania, and where is it? tom: it is 25 miles southeast of scranton, and you can make it in 4 1/2 hours. brian: how many times did you go up there? tom: i made three trims up. prim: why did they talk to you? tom: it is interesting because they refer to the washington post as the washington come post. jeff is not on their favorites list either. partly one could think maybe it is just for the exposure. partly out of curiosity. they were surprisingly open with me. i was up there more than other reporters. but that blessing ceremony, which attracted the media attention, they were very good. there were very few restrictions. what restrictions there were restrictions. se don't walk down into the well

of the church while the ceremony was going on. they were more open than i expected. i was also somewhat surprised. we caught more flak on this story from people who are opponents of the unification church and reverend moon, feeling we didn't go hard enough on sean moon. that sean urprised felt it was very fair and very balanced. brian: those that want to read it from the may 27th magazine of the washington post, which is a sunday. they can read it online, i assume? tom: it still lives online. our goal was to do a more nuance the approach. we were not out to do a cart tonightish piece on these guys. brian: the name of the article is "locked and loaded for the lordment our guest has been tom dunkel, who is a resident here in washington, d.c., and we think you very much. tom: thank you, brian.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its captioning content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org.] announcer: for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us as "q & a".org. programs are also available as c-span pop cast -- podcasts. announcer: next week on "q & a" we talk with gregory watson, the man responsible for getting the 27th amendment to the constitution ratified. according to the amendment, any pay raise or decrease for members of congress can only take effect after the next con congressional election.

on c-span.8:00 p.m. president donald trump will announce his nominee for the supreme court. filling the vacancy left by retiring justice anthony kennedy. watch the announcement live at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span and c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. >> every monday your money segment. today we are focusing on the cost of protecting -- safe guarding nuclear wilhelmsen. joining us is john donnelly. john donnelly. he has been looking at this topic and what have you learned? guest: i have done a few studies on this. the extent to which we spend on the defense