Donald Trump appoints televangelist Frank Amedia as his 'Liaison for Christian policy'

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump reportedly hired televangelist Frank Amedia, pastor of Touch Heaven Ministries, to be his campaign's "liaison for Christian policy." However, Amedia's past record has caught people's attention and many are apparently not impressed. 

In a 2010 report by the Associated Press, Amedia said his church would stop helping earthquake victims in Haiti if they didn't stop practising voodoo.

"There's absolutely a heightened spiritual conflict between Christianity and Voodoo since the quake," Amedia said. "We would give food to the needy in the short term, but if they refused to give up Voodoo, I'm not sure we would continue to support them in the long term because we wouldn't want to perpetuate that practice. We equate it with witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel."

In 2011, a tsunami hit Japan and Amedia claimed in 2012 that he prevented the disaster from reaching Hawaii as his daughter was there at the time. He narrated that he stood at the edge of his bed and said, "In the name of Jesus, I declare that tsunami to stop now" and "I declare those waters to recede." He had apparently taken credit for having stopped -- or having convinced God to stop -- the raging water from reaching the island, which brought devastation to the next one instead.

In a 2015 post on YouTube, he discussed how God saves people from "generational curses," "traditions and cultures that keep us away from God," "an evil lifestyle," among other things. He talked about diseases, saying that many of these, including AIDS, could be avoided if a wholesome life is practised.

"AIDS is a disease that comes because of unnatural sex," he said. "We understand that many of the diseases that we receive is because of exposure that we have to things that we should not be exposed to, lifestyles that are unhealthy or things in our spirit that cause us to become bitter."

Amedia, according to AlterNet, was previously involved in a bribing controversy. He was granted immunity for testifying in a racketeering case in 2001, in whch he is said to have admitted to helping arrange payment of $250,000 to prevent a car dealer friend, who turned back odometers, from being prosecuted in 1994. 

The publication also pointed out Amedia's previous biography in the church's website, which described him as "an Apostle, Prophet, Pastor, Evangelist, Teacher, and Minister in sound biblical doctrine with gifts of knowledge, healing, and discernment," and he "has a unique perspective on the parallel journey of the Church and Israel as he is called as one to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord."

He was a former Jew who reportedly received religious training from Guillermo Maldonado, a Miami pastor associated with the New Apostolic Reformation, a group that, according to the report, is composed of people who proclaim themselves to be modern-day prophets and apostles.

Amedia's post as the Trump campaign's "liaison for Christian policy" was revealed to TIME by Cuban-American evangelical pastor Mario Bramnick, whose meeting with Trump was arranged by Amedia.