WASHINGTON (AP) – Last June, the Lincoln Project was on the rise.
Led by several prominent former Republican advisers, his expertly produced ads attacking President Donald Trump made him perhaps the best known of the so-called Never Trump organizations. The group tried to claim a higher moral base in an effort to eliminate Trump from the GOP. The money flowed through 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 calls of at least 10 specific allegations of harassment against co-founder John Weaver, including two involving Project Lincoln employees, according to several people with direct knowledge of the situation. The e-mail and phone calls raise questions about the Lincoln Project’s statement last month that it was “shocked” when the charges publicly surfaced this year. It is also the first known suggestion that Weaver targeted an employee of the Lincoln Project.
The organization announced on Thursday evening, after the new details were reported by The Associated Press, that its board had decided to “retain the best outside professional” to revise Weaver’s mandate “to establish accountability and best practices here. forward to the Lincoln Project. ”
The group also encouraged anyone bound by a confidentiality agreement “to contact the Lincoln Project for a release.”
Despite the initial warning in June, the group took no action against Weaver and moved on with its high-profile work. For the collection of consultants and former Republican Party officials, being anti-Trump was becoming very good for business. Of the $ 90 million that the Lincoln Project raised, more than $ 50 million went to companies controlled by the group’s leaders.
There is no evidence that Project Lincoln buried the charges against Weaver for commercial reasons. But taken together, allegations of harassment and new revelations about spending practices raise significant questions about the management of one of Trump’s most profound antagonists. The revelations threaten the stature not only of the Lincoln Project, but also of the broader coalition of establishment-oriented Republican groups working to remove 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 contractor has ever made an allegation of inappropriate communication about John Weaver that would have triggered an investigation by HR or an outside employment lawyer,” said Schmidt in an interview on Wednesday. “In other words, no human being has ever made a claim about any inappropriate sexualized communication about John Weaver.”
Weaver declined to comment on this story, but in a statement released last month to Axios, he generally acknowledged the misconduct and apologized.
“For the men I made uncomfortable with my messages, who at the time considered consensual mutual conversations: I’m sorry,” he wrote. “They were inadequate and it was because of my failures that this discomfort was caused to you.”
The Lincoln Project was launched in November 2019 as a super PAC which allowed its leaders to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money.
Its founders represent who’s who of prominent Republican strategists on cable television, including Schmidt and Reed Galen, both former advisers to John McCain; conservative lawyer George Conway; former President of the New Hampshire Republican Party, Jennifer Horn; Rick Wilson, veteran Florida political ad creator; and Weaver, who has long advised former Ohio governor John Kasich.
Supported by its founders’ dominant social media presence, the organization quickly attracted a large following of Trump critics on both sides, which exceeded even the expectations of its own founders.
Since its creation, the Lincoln Project has raised $ 90 million. But only about a third of the money, about $ 27 million, was paid directly for ads shown on the broadcast and on cable or online, during the 2020 campaign, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures and data from the ad tracking company Kantar / CMAG.
This leaves tens of millions of dollars for expenses like production costs, overheads – and exorbitant consulting fees charged by group members.
“It raises questions about where the rest of the money went,” said Brendan Fischer, a lawyer at the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington. “Generally speaking, you would expect to see a large super PAC spend most or more of its money on ads and that is not what happened here.”
The vast majority of the money was split between consulting firms controlled by its founders, including about $ 27 million paid to a small company controlled by Galen and another $ 21 million paid to a boutique company run by the former Lincoln Project member Ron Steslow, show the campaign funding disclosures.
But in many cases, it is difficult to say how much the group members received. That’s because Project Lincoln adopted a strategy, much like the Trump campaign they criticized, to mask how much money they made.
Although several companies have received payments, Weaver and Wilson are not listed in the publicly available records. They were probably paid as subcontractors to these companies, an agreement that avoids disclosure. Schmidt received a payment of $ 1.5 million in December, but returned it quickly.
“We fully comply with the law,” said Schmidt. “The Lincoln Project will be pleased to open its books for auditing immediately after the Trump campaign and all super affiliate PACs do, explaining the nearly $ 700 million cash flow that flowed through their organizations controlled by Brad Parscale and Jared Kushner. ”
The Lincoln Project broke up with a co-founder, Horn, last week, claiming in an unusual public statement that she was looking for a $ 250,000 signing bonus and a $ 40,000 consulting contract per month. Horn said he left after revelations of Weaver’s “grotesque” behavior and divergent views with existing leadership on how to move forward.
Public records reveal that the Lincoln Project’s unexpected success extended a lifeline to some founders who have spent much of the past decade in financial distress.
Over the past decade, Weaver has repeatedly failed to pay taxes, failed to pay loans and faced lawsuits from creditors seeking to collect. In October, he paid $ 313,000 in back taxes due to the IRS since 2011, records show. A separate case in Texas is still pending more than $ 340,000 in arrears that his family owes after closing a children’s boutique they ran, records show.
Others used the money earned during the Lincoln Project to refinance homes or buy a new one. Schmidt bought a $ 1.4 million “Mountain Modern” custom home in Kamas, Utah, with five bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a “stunning” view of the Uinta Mountains, according to property records and property listings. He is trying to resell the house for $ 2.9 million.
But as the money flowed into the group, several people with direct knowledge said that the charges against Weaver were raised repeatedly within the organization, long before the leaders publicly recognized them in late January. Those with knowledge spoke on condition of anonymity 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 several sexual harassment cases involving Weaver that lasted for several years. Although the AP did not see the email, its content was confirmed by four people who saw it directly.
Schmidt did not confirm the existence of the email, saying only that, if it existed, it was not shared with anyone on the organization’s board or leadership.
But several people familiar with the situation say that Steslow immediately picked up the email with Galen, who helped manage day-to-day operations at the time, and with Lincoln Project corporate attorney Matthew Sanderson. Steslow also encouraged his colleagues to remove Weaver from the organization.
These and other allegations were discussed in subsequent calls to the organization’s leaders in June and August, and employees were assured that the alleged incidents would be investigated. Weaver went on sick leave in August, but as the presidential campaign progressed 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 Project Lincoln leaders were aware of the allegations against Weaver and were preparing to respond to media reports.
The charges against Weaver followed a similar pattern in which the 61-year-old man, married and the father of two, allegedly sent private messages to young gay men on Twitter. They often started with references to work before moving on to things like their personal appearance, exercise 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 officer. There is no claim of physical contact.
Conway, one of the group’s co-founders, said on Thursday that he had received nothing of value for his work on the Lincoln Project and denied knowledge of last summer’s internal discussions.
“No one has ever told me about these complaints made to the Lincoln project, and the first time I heard that Weaver may have done something questionable were rumors that I heard well after the election, and long after he stopped being actively involved with the organization ”, Conway wrote on Twitter.
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People reported from New York.