Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt left the anti-Trump media group just a day after being singled out in an open letter from former employees who accused the group of handling sexual harassment charges against co-founder John Weaver and attacks those who tried to speak.
Schmidt announced the news on Friday in an explosive statement revealing that he suffered sexual abuse when he was a 13-year-old child while attending the Boy Scout camp.
“John Weaver put me back in that distant hut” with an attacker, wrote Schmidt, insisting that he didn’t hear about the charges against Weaver until January, when they became public.
“I wish that John Weaver was not a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, but as much as I wish this to be true, I cannot change what he was,” he wrote.
“I am extremely angry about this,” he continued. “I am angry because I know the damage he has done to me and I know the journey that is ahead of every young man who has trusted, feared and been abused by John Weaver.”
“Currently, the Lincoln Project board is made up of four middle-aged white men. This composition does not reflect our nation, nor our movement. I am resigning my position on the Lincoln Project board to make room for the appointment of a woman on the board as the first step in renovating and professionalizing the Lincoln Project, ”he said.
Turbulence washed over the group after reports that senior leadership was aware of allegations of sexual harassment against co-founder John Weaver last summer, long before the charges were made public in January. Political news website The 19th reported on the same day Schmidt’s statement that the allegations were an open secret at the group’s Park City office, even among younger officials in the November election, and were known to senior leadership even earlier. The team told the channel that the founders created a toxic workplace filled with sexist and homophobic language.
Following the Associated Press reports, New York magazine, and The New York Times, Lincoln Project senior adviser Kurt Bardella and conservative commentator Tom Nichols, who served as an unpaid adviser, announced their departure from the group on Friday. CNBC also reports that several donors in the group are considering halting all financial contributions pending the outcome of an external investigation.
Weaver was accused of sending unsolicited sexual messages to more than 20 men and trying to exchange their connections for sex. He has since resigned from the group and acknowledged that he had engaged in “inappropriate” behavior, but said he believed the interactions were consensual. (Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson is a Daily Beast columnist and podcast host.)
The latest controversy, however, focused on the leadership’s handling of the charges against Weaver. As questions emerged on Thursday about how much the group’s leadership knew about the allegations and when, the group announced that it had hired a “best outside professional in the class” to review Weaver’s allegations of abuse and how Project Lincoln leaders handled thereby. The group also said that any employee bound by a non-disclosure agreement to withhold information about Weaver could request the release of such a contract.
But just a few hours later, former employees claimed in an open letter, published by The New York Times, that they “don’t feel safe” interacting directly with the group’s leadership – particularly because of Schmidt’s “attack” and the use of “public defamation on Twitter” against Jennifer Horn, another co-founder who resigned last week through which she described as “grotesque and inappropriate behavior” and “long-standing disappointments.” After her comments, Horn was publicly accused by the group of trying to win a $ 250,000 signing bonus.
On Thursday night, the group seemed to plunge deeper into the conflict with Horn. The Lincoln Project’s Twitter account posted a tweet that contained screenshots of an alleged direct message conversation on Twitter between Horn and Amanda Becker, a reporter for The 19th. The tweets were deleted after the group accused Becker of “preparing to publish a defamatory work” with Horn as the source.
Schmidt took responsibility for the tweet on Friday: “This direct message should never have been made public. It is my job as a senior leader to accept responsibility for the tremendous error of judgment in releasing him. “
He also apologized directly to Horn and Becker.
“I let my anger turn a business dispute into a public war that distracted me from the struggle against American fascism,” he said, adding that Horn “deserved better than me.”