A Christian megachurch in the Dallas area has removed four of its elders following an internal investigation into the institution’s handling of revelations of child sex abuse by its founder, a former spiritual adviser to Donald Trump.

A Gateway Church official announced during a service on Saturday that the ousted leaders either knew that Robert Morris had molested a girl for years starting in 1982, when she was 12, or “failed to inquire further” after being made aware of it . Morning News reports this.

Gateway did not identify the removed leaders, but the Morning News found that four names had been removed from the church’s elders page: Jeremy Carrasco, Kevin Grove, Gayland Lawshe and Thomas Miller. Those remaining were Kenneth W Fambro II, Dane Minor and Tra Willbanks, who made the announcement on Saturday about the other elders, who had belonged to what was essentially Gateway’s board of directors.

Willbanks added that those who knew Morris’ sexual assault survivor was “12 at the time of the abuse” but failed to act “are fundamentally wrong and simply cannot – and will not – be tolerated.”

Willbanks’ announcement marked a new chapter in a scandal centering on a figure with ties to Trump’s two previous presidential attempts. And it came days before Tuesday’s election, in which Trump is also a candidate.

Morris resigned in June after admitting that he engaged in “inappropriate sexual conduct” with a girl – who has publicly identified herself as Cindy Clemishire – between 1982 and 1987, beginning when she was a young teenager. He made a point of saying that the sexual contact stopped just before intercourse, although he described that “kissing and caressing… (that) was wrong.”

Morris has said he took time off from preaching in 1987 after confessing the abuse to his superiors at the time, but details of the assault were not immediately made public. He later founded Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, in 2000, and it grew into one of the largest institutions of its kind in the U.S., with more than 100,000 congregants.

The religious publication Christian Post first reported Clemishire’s allegations that caused Morris’ resignation. The Gateway Church condemned Morris’ actions, but initially claimed it did not have all the details of the “inappropriate relationship between (him) and the victim, including her age at the time and the duration of the abuse.”

In a statement to the Guardian, church elders said they believed Morris had had an “extramarital relationship… with ‘a young lady’” and had no prior indications that he had sexually abused a child. But, as detailed by Willbanks on Saturday, the findings of an internal investigation conducted by the Texas law firm of Haynes and Boone seemingly contradict that in the case of most of the church’s elders.

Willbanks said he could not discuss the matter further due to ongoing litigation and a criminal investigation. He did not elaborate on who or what exactly authorities were investigating.

Morris was reportedly among six people who refused to cooperate with Hayne and Boone’s investigation. Willbanks also said Morris responded to Clemishire making his abuse public by instructing church staff to issue a statement minimizing her account.

Morris, 63, had previously occupied visible spots next to Trump when The Apprentice star won the presidency in 2016 and then lost it in 2020.

Morris served on Trump’s evangelical advisory board during the first of those campaigns. And for the second of those campaigns, he participated in a roundtable discussion with the former president and religious leaders at Gateway.

Trump’s team has said Morris was not part of the Republican nominee’s third run for the White House, which culminated on Tuesday against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Morris was a traveling evangelist at the time he began abusing Clemishire and was friends with her family. Clemishire said Morris asked for — and received — her father’s forgiveness. But her family did not want him to ever return to ministry.

Another official who resigned from the Gateway church after Clemishire spoke out was Morris’ son, James, who launched a new church in September.

At one point, during a recorded phone call, Morris offered to pay Clemishire to keep quiet about her abuse, NBC News previously reported, citing a transcript.

Yet he reportedly hung up after Clemishire asked for $2 million.