Current Events > Lincoln Project was huge scam, aware of founder's harassment for months

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https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-b14be5f06588b8f1d78125d4141394cb

Last June, the Lincoln Project was on a high.

Led by several prominent former Republican consultants, its slickly produced ads attacking President Donald Trump made it perhaps the best known of the so-called Never Trump organizations. The group tried to claim a higher moral ground in an effort to purge Trump from the GOP. Money flowed in by the tens of millions of dollars from donors eager to help.

But within the organization, a grave threat was emerging.

In June 2020, members of the organizations leadership were informed in writing and in subsequent phone calls of at least 10 specific allegations of harassment against co-founder John Weaver, including two involving Lincoln Project employees, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the situation. The email and phone calls raise questions about the Lincoln Projects statement last month that it was shocked when accusations surfaced publicly this year. Its also the first known suggestion that Weaver targeted a Lincoln Project staffer.

Despite the early warning, the group took no action against Weaver and pressed forward with its high-profile work. For the collection of GOP consultants and former officials, being anti-Trump was becoming very good for business. Of the $90 million Lincoln Project has raised, more than $50 million has gone to firms controlled by the groups leaders.

There is no evidence that the Lincoln Project buried the allegations against Weaver for business reasons. But taken together, the harassment allegations and new revelations about spending practices raise significant questions about the management of one of the highest-profile antagonists of Trump. The revelations threaten the stature of not just the Lincoln Project but the broader coalition of establishment-oriented Republican groups hoping to pool their resources to excise Trump from the party.

Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt insisted that he and the rest of the groups leadership were not aware of any internal allegations of wrongdoing involving Weaver.

No Lincoln Project employee, intern, or contractors ever made an allegation of inappropriate communication about John Weaver that would have triggered an investigation by HR or by an outside employment counsel, Schmidt said. In other words, no human being ever made an allegation about any inappropriate sexualized communications about John Weaver ever.

Weaver declined to comment for this story, but in a statement released late last month to Axios he generally acknowledged misconduct and apologized.

To the men I made uncomfortable through my messages that I viewed as consensual mutual conversations at the time: I am truly sorry, he wrote. They were inappropriate and it was because of my failings that this discomfort was brought on you.

The Lincoln Project launched in November 2019 as a super PAC that allowed its leaders to raise and spend unlimited sums of money.

Its founders represent a whos who of prominent Republican strategists on cable television, including Schmidt and Reed Galen, both former advisers to John McCain; conservative attorney George Conway; former New Hampshire GOP chair Jennifer Horn; Florida-based veteran political ad maker Rick Wilson; and Weaver, who has long advised former Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Backed by its founders commanding social media presence, the organization quickly attracted a massive following of Trump critics in both parties that exceeded even its own founders expectations.

Since its creation, the Lincoln Project has raised $90 million. But only about a third of the money, roughly $27 million, directly paid for advertisements that aired on broadcast and cable, or appeared online, during the 2020 campaign, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures and data from the ad tracking firm Kantar/CMAG.

That leaves tens of millions of dollars that went toward expenses like production costs, overhead and exorbitant consulting fees collected by members of the group.

It raises questions about where the rest of the money ultimately went, said Brendan Fischer, an attorney with the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington. Generally speaking, youd expect to see a major super PAC spend a majority or more of their money on advertisements and thats not what happened here.

The vast majority of the cash was split among consulting firms controlled by its founders, including about $27 million paid to a small firm controlled by Galen and another $21 million paid to a boutique firm run by former Lincoln Project member Ron Steslow, campaign finance disclosures show.

But in many cases its difficult to tell how much members of the group were paid. Thats because the Lincoln Project adopted a strategy, much like the Trump campaign they criticized, to mask how much money they earned.

While several firms did collect payments, Weaver and Wilson are not listed in publicly available records. They were likely paid as subcontractors to those firms, an arrangement that avoids disclosure. Schmidt collected a $1.5 million payment in December but quickly returned it.

We fully comply with the law, Schmidt said. The Lincoln Project will be delighted to open its books for audit immediately after the Trump campaign and all affiliated super PACs do so, explaining the cash flow of the nearly $700 million that flowed through their organizations controlled by Brad Parscale and Jared Kushner.

The Lincoln Project parted with one co-founder, Horn, last week, claiming in an unusual public statement that she was seeking a $250,000 signing bonus and a $40,000-a-month consulting contract. Horn said that she left following revelations of Weavers grotesque behavior and divergent views with existing leadership about how to move forward.

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If the founder needs to go, then send them on their way.

Though I feel some of their ads are a little too on the nose sometimes

Bump

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Everyone knew it was a grift

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KiwiTerraRizing posted...

Everyone knew it was a grift

A lot of users here didn't.
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nice; double grift

/s

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Smashingpmkns posted...

A lot of users here didn't.

now they will, amirite

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I mean anyone who gave them money is a dummy, but whoever runs their social media is on point and Democrats need to hire em lol

They've responded by getting mad at the reporter
https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1360173406323429377


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Antifar posted...

They've responded by getting mad at the reporter
https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1360173406323429377

This is such a Republican thing to do too

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Lol they took tens of millions in donations to attract more republican voters to the DNC, only to have less Republicans vote for Biden than they did for Hillary. Talk about failures. And still the neoliberals throw money at them. Looooosers

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This just in: The grifters turned out to be grifters

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While they certainly didn't win the election for Biden single handedly or anything, they definitely gave the Never Trump republicans a place to feel like they weren't entirely crazy, and they may have very well helped tighten some close states.

That work is done, they say they want to continue on but just saying "hey we got rid of Trump" and dissolving is probably the better option if its such a mess behind the scenes. They managed to hide most of the turmoil until after the election, that's all that really matters.

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Lincoln project? The guys been dead since forever though

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The Top Crusader posted...

While they certainly didn't win the election for Biden single handedly or anything, they definitely gave the Never Trump republicans a place to feel like they weren't entirely crazy, and they may have very well helped tighten some close states.

That work is done, they say they want to continue on but just saying "hey we got rid of Trump" and dissolving is probably the better option if its such a mess behind the scenes. They managed to hide most of the turmoil until after the election, that's all that really matters.

They are grifters, they always were grifters, and rationalizing their grifter nature only hurts you.

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They were in essence a scam, even if they had succeeded in their stated goals. They were a money and reputation laundering scheme for pre-Trump Republican ghouls. They succeeded at their real goal. Having gullible liberals and centrists give them money and absolve them of their sins because they sent some snappy tweets and played the role of the mythical "good Republicans" that so many seem desperate to find.

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The Top Crusader posted...

While they certainly didn't win the election for Biden single handedly or anything, they definitely gave the Never Trump republicans a place to feel like they weren't entirely crazy

you mean all 10 of them?

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https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1360372629308276740
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do you mean to tell me a neoconservative think tank has swindled the public again

who could have predicted this

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Lincoln Project was a tool we used to help get rid of a tyrant. Now that the tyrant is gone we can throw the tool away.

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BeyondWalls posted...

Lincoln Project was a tool we used to help get rid of a tyrant. Now that the tyrant is gone we can throw the tool away.

There's no evidence they even did anything lol
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Pretty sure there's evidence they did absolutely nothing other than grift a shit ton of money
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When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

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if they helped trump lose its fine by me.

whos dumb enough to give them money anyway? lol

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Bio1590 posted...

There's no evidence they even did anything lol

No. Not exactly. There's no evidence they swung any Republicans. But the meme ads definitely helped fire up the base and probably energized some democrats into going to the polls. You have to count anything that keeps the base fired up as a win.

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E32005 posted...

if they helped trump lose its fine by me.

whos dumb enough to give them money anyway? lol

This.

Pretty sure no one on here gave them any money.

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