Lahmeyer text messages exposed

Congressional candidate Jackson Lahmeyer canceled his sermon this morning at Sheridan.Church. Hours later, the London-based Daily Mail published an expose of Lahmeyer's flirtatious texts with a former Miss Oklahoma USA. Although the texts indicate no sexual involvement had yet occurred, the reaction from Lahmeyer's wife shows that she saw her husband moving toward the exits with Caitlin Simmons Key, a single mom who worked as a fundraiser for the campaign.

Jackson Lahmeyer, 34, the Tulsa megachurch pastor whom Donald Trump anointed a 'MAGA Warrior' last month, faces a torrent of his own text messages obtained by the Daily Mail ahead of Oklahoma's 1st District Republican primary on Tuesday.

In them he professes his love for the former pageant queen, invites her to his hotel room, and recounts leaving Mar-a-Lago to visit a strip club at 1am after being offered cocaine, which he declined.

Her reply now reads as prophecy: 'Jackson if u become congressman & if ever got caught u would be headlines.' Then, one word: 'Pastor.'

Caitlin Simmons Key, a 40-year-old single mom who worked as a fundraiser for Lahmeyer's campaign, tells the Daily Mail they shared inappropriate texts before his wife learned of the relationship on the eve of Mother's Day.

'You are a home wrecking whore. Did you enjoy ruining our family?' Lahmeyer's wife Kendra wrote to Key on May 9: 'He has 5 kids.'...

Key first met Lahmeyer in 2022, when he was a political newcomer mounting a long-shot Republican primary challenge to incumbent US Senator James Lankford.

She was active on the Oklahoma conservative scene; he was the pastor who had refused to shut his church during Covid. She signed on to raise money for the campaign.

Lahmeyer lost to Lankford in a landslide. But the two stayed in touch, and, Key said, grew closer as she went through a bruising divorce. She said he would call to check in. It became an intense friendship that went too far, she says.

'Eventually the conversations crossed the line of probably what most people would consider appropriate for a married man and a single woman,' she said.

Through that period Lahmeyer's national profile climbed. He founded Pastors for Trump and was brought into the president's new White House Faith Office. Key worked as a media contact for Lahmeyer's organization. He was in Washington constantly, she says, and repeatedly encouraged her to join him: 'You gotta come to DC.' She declined every time.

Key posting about Trump's endorsement started the ball rolling toward exposure:

On May 6, the president endorsed Lahmeyer on Truth Social telling Oklahoma's 1st Congressional District: 'HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!'

The next day, Key shared the endorsement on Facebook with a header vouching for the candidate: she wrote that she knew him well, knew his family, and was ready to 'get to DC.'

It was that public revelation, she says, that undid them. The morning after the post, she got a call from campaign manager Killian. 'She's pissed,' Key said he told her, meaning Kendra Lahmeyer. 'She got into Jackson's messages.'

That led to Mrs. Lahmeyer "home wrecking whore" message quoted above.

Later, Jackson Lahmeyer texted Key:

Kendra wanted to recover all of our messages. I deleted them. I told her I got way too close to you and became emotionally attached. She lost it on me. [...]

I've been very clear with her that I got way to close to you and shared too much about myself... but we were not romantic. I deleted all her texts and she thinks there is way more going on. She is flipping on me because I will not share more. [...]

I did not see this coming. She came home and wanted to read our texts and I had deleted them and then she lost it. Saying I had something to hide. And so I have shared with her that you and I have gotten close and that I crossed the line and etc... but was very clear we had nothing romantic or etc... but she doesn't believe me.

The morning after Mother's Day, he then instructed Key to delete messages:

Ok send me a screenshot of our last several texts and I'll show which ones to remove.

Kendra has really shifted now. I think the hurt and wine caused yesterday

Archive link to the story.