WASHINGTON – The influential anti-Donald Trump group, Lincoln Project, is denouncing one of its co-founders after several reports that, for several years, he sexually harassed young people who wanted to enter politics.
The Lincoln Project, in a statement on Sunday, called co-founder John Weaver, 61, “a predator, a liar and an abuser” after reports that he repeatedly sent unsolicited and sexually charged messages online to young people, often suggesting that he could help they get work in politics.
“The totality of his mistakes is beyond anything any of us could have imagined and we are absolutely shocked and disgusted by it,” the Lincoln Project, the most prominent Republican super PAC “Never Trump” to emerge during the 45th term of the president at the White House, said in his statement.
Weaver did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News and the Associated Press.
Online magazine The American Conservative first reported allegations of sexual harassment earlier this month.
Days later, Weaver, a strategist who advised the late Republican Senator John McCain and former Ohio Governor John Kasich in their unsuccessful White House candidacies, acknowledged in a statement to the Axios website that he had sent “inappropriate” messages that he as mutual and consensual conversations at the time ”.
Weaver’s statement came after several men turned to social media to accuse him of sending sexually suggestive messages, sometimes accompanied by job offers or political promotion.
The Lincoln Project made its most substantive comments on the growing charges against Weaver, after the New York Times reported on Sunday that the newspaper interviewed 21 men who said they had been harassed by Weaver.
One of the alleged victims told The Times that he started receiving messages from Weaver when he was just 14. The messages became more striking after he turned 18.
Other founders of the Lincoln Project included 2012 presidential adviser Mitt Romney Stuart Stevens, former McCain and George W. Bush strategist Steve Schmidt and Republican ad creator Rick Wilson.
The group throughout the 2020 election cycle produced some of the most violent attacks on Trump, questioning the president and the morality and leadership of his advisers.
The Lincoln Project said in its statement that “at no time was John Weaver in the physical presence of any member” of the super PAC.
Weaver took sick leave from the Lincoln Project last summer. He told Axios earlier this month that he had no plans to return to the group.
Rebecca Shabad contributed.