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WASHINGTON — 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 crisis was brewing.

In June 2020, members of the organization’s 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 Project’s statement last month that it was “shocked”
when accusations surfaced publicly this year. It’s 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 group’s 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 working to excise Trump from the party.

Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt insisted that he and
the rest of the group’s 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 who’s 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, you’d expect to see a major super PAC spend a majority
or more of their money on advertisements and that’s 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 it’s difficult to tell how much members of the
group were paid. That’s 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
Weaver’s “grotesque” behavior and divergent views with existing
leadership about how to move forward.

Public records reveal that the unexpected success of the Lincoln
Project has extended a lifeline to some founders who have spent
much of the past decade under financial distress.

Over the past decade, Weaver has repeatedly failed to pay taxes,
defaulted on loans and faced lawsuits from creditors seeking to
collect. In October, he paid off $313,000 in back taxes owed to
the IRS dating back to 2011, records show. A separate case in
Texas is still pending over $340,000 back rent his family owes
after shuttering a children’s boutique they operated, records
show.

Others used the money earned during their time with Lincoln
Project to refinance homes, or purchase a new one. Schmidt
purchased a $1.4 million “Mountain Modern” custom home in Kamas,
Utah, with five bedrooms, seven baths and a “stunning” view of
the Uinta Mountains, according to property records and real
estate listings. He is currently trying to resell the home for
$2.9 million.

But as money flowed into the group, multiple people with direct
knowledge said allegations against Weaver were repeatedly raised
inside the organization, long before leaders acknowledged them
publicly in late January. Those with knowledge insisted on
anonymity in order to disclose private communications.

Last June, someone working for the Lincoln Project payroll sent
an email to Steslow, one of the organization’s co-founders,
detailing numerous cases of sexual harassment involving Weaver
that spanned several years. While the AP has not seen the email,
its contents were confirmed by four people who had directly seen
it.

Schmidt did not confirm the existence of the email, saying only
that if one existed, it was not shared with anyone on the
organization’s board or leadership.

But multiple people familiar with the situation say that Steslow
immediately raised the email with Galen, who helped manage day-
to-day operations at the time, and the Lincoln Project’s
corporate counsel Matthew Sanderson. Steslow also encouraged his
colleagues to remove Weaver from the organization.

Those allegations and others were discussed on subsequent phone
calls with organization leaders in June and August, and
employees were assured that the alleged incidents would be
investigated. Weaver went out on medical leave in August, but as
the presidential campaign moved into the summer and fall, there
was no formal resolution.

The Washington Blade reported earlier this week details of
another set of internal communications over the summer
indicating that Lincoln Project leaders were aware of
allegations against Weaver and preparing to respond to media
reports.

The allegations against Weaver followed a similar pattern in
which the 61-year-old married father of two would allegedly send
private messages to young gay men on Twitter. They often began
with references to work before shifting to things like their
personal appearance, workout routines and favorite sexual
positions.

At least two Lincoln Project employees were targeted last year,
including an intern who was finishing law school, and a
communications staffer. There is no allegation of physical
contact.

Conway, one of the group’s co-founders, said Thursday that he
had not received anything of value for his Lincoln Project work,
and he denied knowledge of last summer’s internal discussions.

“No one ever told me of these complaints being made to the
Lincoln project, and the first I ever heard that Weaver may have
done anything questionable were rumors I heard well after the
election, and long after I ceased active involvement with the
organization,” Conway wrote on Twitter.

https://nypost.com/2021/02/11/how-a-leading-anti-trump-group- ignored-a-crisis-in-its-ranks/
 

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