Raphael Warnock Lives Free in $1 Million Luxury Home—Purchased by His Church

The lavish Atlanta home where Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) resides brims with luxury details: Marketed as a “one of one custom home that effortlessly merges history & luxury,” the five-bedroom home, built in 2022, went on the market for over a million dollars later that year and sold quickly—not to Warnock, but to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he still serves as part-time senior pastor when he’s not representing the state of Georgia in Congress.

The DeKalb County home came equipped with a plethora of luxury accommodations, including a 100-bottle wine fridge, a Bluetooth-enabled stainless steel cooking range, custom crown molding, and a walk-in closet affixed to a “stunning” European bathroom with a remote-controlled privacy curtain. That privacy extends to Google Maps, where the images of the property are blurred from view.

Warnock, who quietly moved into the home in 2023, now lives there rent-free, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. Georgia state records show that Warnock listed the home as his primary residence when he registered to vote in November 2023, and real estate records indicate the property is owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church, which, according to public records, snapped it up for $989,000 in October 2022.

Warnock now lives in the home for free. Property taxes? Well, the church, and thereby Warnock, is exempt from nearly all of them, even from those that subsidize Atlanta-area schools, libraries, parks, bonds, and local government operations, real estate records show.

While Georgia state law bars Ebenezer Baptist Church from collecting rent on the home, it allows churches to purchase tax-exempt homes for pastors “when no income is derived from the property.”

It’s unclear why Ebenezer Baptist Church bought the luxury home for Warnock, who owned his own home in Atlanta when the church purchased the DeKalb property. (Warnock sold his personal Atlanta home shortly after he moved into the church-owned home, real estate records show.)

Warnock’s attorney, Jacquelyn Lopez of the Elias Law Group, did not dispute that Warnock is living in the luxurious abode for free. In a statement Sunday to the Free Beacon, Lopez referred to the church-owned property as the “Senator’s personal home” and said publication of the address would put Warnock at “grave risk of physical harm.”

The arrangement does not appear to be going over well with some members of the church, including a former associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Albert Paul Brinson, who was ordained at Ebenezer Baptist Church by the civil rights icon in 1965.

Brinson, who was recognized by the Georgia State Legislature in 2023 for serving as a “living source on the life and ministry” of the late civil rights leader, said King would have never approved of Warnock’s luxury housing arrangements with Ebenezer Baptist Church.

King “would have never endorsed that in any way,” Brinson said during an interview with local activist K.J. Boynton, adding that Ebenezer Baptist Church’s housing allowance was intended to provide modest accommodations for its pastors so that they can focus their energies on fulfilling the church’s mission.

“If I had been him,” Brinson said, referring to Warnock, “I would never have allowed the church to do that kind of thing. … [The parsonage allowance] wasn’t just to be something that had to be elaborate and the greatest thing … it was for the church.”

Brinson declined to comment to the Free Beacon about his thoughts about Ebenezer Baptist Church’s purchase of a luxury home for Warnock. He confirmed, however, that he speaks with Boynton “quite often.”

Warnock himself has not publicly disclosed his new housing arrangement. But on March 16, he urged his congregation to donate to a $3.5 million church fundraising campaign known as One Ebenezer devoted to, among other things, “reducing our mortgage debt.” During that sermon, Warnock called on the members of the congregation to donate “at least” $139 on top of their 10 percent tithe in honor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church’s 139th anniversary.

“So give what you would normally give. Do that first,” Warnock said from the pulpit. “Then maybe you want to give an anniversary [gift] … $139. Everybody who can … give at least that much.”

“There are others who say, I can do better. I can give $500. I can give $1,000,” Warnock went on. “Somebody might want to give their bonus. Why are y’all laughing? I ain’t laughing, I’m serious. You might want to give your bonus. You might want to give a week’s salary. All of us are blessed at different levels.”

In addition to his free Atlanta housing, Warnock earned a church salary of $31,800 in 2023 as well as nearly $461,000 in book royalties, his financial disclosure shows. A tithe on that income would have amounted to over $49,000, but it’s unclear if Warnock donated anything to Ebenezer Baptist Church in 2023.

When Ebenezer Baptist Church purchased the DeKalb County home, Warnock was in the midst of a tight reelection campaign against Republican Herschel Walker.

Warnock’s financial arrangements with his church—in particular, a $7,417-per-month tax-free housing allowance he received from the church to cover his living expenses in Atlanta—drew scrutiny because it enabled him to exceed the Senate’s limitations on outside income.

The controversy burst into view after the Free Beacon reported in October 2022 that the church, while underwriting Warnock’s living expenses, also owned a low-income Atlanta apartment building that had worked to evict disadvantaged residents during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing infractions as petty as $28.55 in past-due rent.

In his lone debate with Walker during that campaign, Warnock dismissed the Free Beacon report, which gained traction with local and national media outlets, as a “vicious and venomous” effort to “sully the name of Dr. King’s church” for “short term-political gain.”

Warnock’s 2023 financial disclosure makes no indication of his living arrangement, but ethics expert Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette of the Project on Government Oversight watchdog group said the arrangement probably does not violate Senate ethics rules, which allow lawmakers to receive “lodging and other benefits” from outside employers in certain circumstances. In Warnock’s case, Hedtler-Gaudette said, he’s likely in the clear because Ebenezer Baptist Church has a long history of providing housing benefits for its pastors.

“Whether this particular instance represents a violation of Senate rules or ethics laws or not, the important thing to remember is that both the ethics laws currently on the books and internal congressional ethics rules are weak and ineffectual,” Hedtler-Gaudette said. “In particular, when it comes to Congress, allowing the institution to simply appoint its own members to ethics committees and task them with self-policing is, at best, an extremely insufficient way to ensure maximum ethical hygiene on the part of our elected leaders.”

A lawyer for the watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center, Paul Kamenar, also said that Warnock’s housing arrangement is likely in line with the Senate’s lax ethics rules but noted that the IRS could view the benefit as excessive, considering Warnock works for the church in a part-time capacity.

“It’s obscene that Senator Warnock’s church allows him to live rent-free in a new million-dollar house while it evicts poor black residents from its apartment building for being late in paying back rent for as little as $28,” Kamenar said. “Moreover, this benefit and his pay for being a part-time pastor may be an excessive benefit under IRS rules and trigger tax penalties.”

Warnock has an eye for luxury. In January 2023, he purchased a $1.15 million Capitol Hill townhouse in Washington, D.C, the Free Beacon reported.

Original News Source – Washington Free Beacon

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