As Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Roy Moore is facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, Pastor Mark Burns took to the defense of the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Thursday on MSNBC’s “Velshi & Ruhle.”

Burns prefaced his comments by saying anybody found guilty of allegations should be removed from office or disqualified, but said the decades-old allegations are “dangerous” and look to him to be a “character assassination” on a “strong Christian conservative.”

“[I] think it’s a dangerous, slippery slope that when we just allow things that can be considered suspicious for 40-year-old allegations to come up after Roy Moore has become the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate,” Burns said. “I think we really have to be very careful. First of all, those allegations are extremely serious. If anyone who is found to be guilty of sexual misconduct should be removed from office or disqualified from running for office. But I think we have to really begin to ask ourselves, ‘Is this simply just a political assassination of Roy Moore — who is very clearly a strong Christian conservative who for the last 40 years has been fighting the Christian conservative fight in the great state of Alabama?'”

He added, “I understand how character assassination works. CNN did it to me. … They wanted to create the narrative that said I am a false, fake liar and so that’s exactly what they ran. I understand the power of character assassination. So, when I see Roy Moore, I can simply say for me this looks like what I personally went through, which is a sign of character assassination.

Burns then called it “dangerous” to allow people to make allegations over something that happened 40 years ago.

“Why wait 40 years for these to come out while he’s the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate?” he asked. “I think it’s very suspicious.”

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