Additionally saying their departures Friday have been senior adviser Kurt Bardella and Nayyera Haq, who earlier this week signed on to host a web
Additionally saying their departures Friday have been senior adviser Kurt Bardella and Nayyera Haq, who earlier this week signed on to host a web based program for the group. Tom Nichols, a international affairs columnist and professor, introduced on Twitter that he was stepping down as an unpaid adviser. Jennifer Horn, a senior determine within the group, resigned earlier within the month over the Lincoln Undertaking’s dealing with of the Weaver accusations.
Ron Steslow and Mike Madrid, two different leaders, left in December. George Conway, a former Lincoln Undertaking official and the husband of ex-Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway, has additionally stepped away from the outfit.
The Lincoln Undertaking, which was made up of present and former Republican strategists who have been stridently against Trump, made a splash through the 2020 election. The group aired hard-edged advertisements focusing on the previous president and his allies — a few of them in starkly private phrases — and raked in additional than $87 million in donations. Its senior officers — together with Florida-based operative Rick Wilson and Schmidt — grew to become cable information regulars.
However the group’s downfall has been swift. The New York Occasions reported on Jan. 31 that greater than 20 males had accused the 61-year-old Weaver, who served as a high strategist for the late Arizona Sen. John McCain and later labored on former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s 2016 presidential bid, of sexually harassing them by on-line messages. Within the days that adopted, questions intensified about when Lincoln Undertaking leaders first realized concerning the accusations and what they did to handle them.
Individuals conversant in the group’s inner dynamics say particular complaints about Weaver’s conduct have been dropped at managers in the summertime of 2020, although Schmidt has pushed again on these claims. In his Friday night assertion, Schmidt mentioned that he “realized about John Weaver’s misconduct with an underage boy this previous January.”
The Lincoln Undertaking launched an announcement earlier within the week saying that it was retaining a “best-in-class outdoors skilled to assessment Mr. Weaver’s tenure with the group.”
Weaver, who’s married with a spouse and two kids, has acknowledged sending “inappropriate” messages to males.
Then, on Thursday, the Related Press reported that greater than half of the group’s funding had been directed to consulting corporations that had been managed by Lincoln Undertaking officers — a large sum that fed accusations that leaders had enriched themselves. The disaster intensified later within the day, when the Lincoln Undertaking’s Twitter feed posted screenshots of personal on-line messages between Horn and Amanda Becker, a reporter for 19th Information who had been engaged on a narrative concerning the group’s work tradition.
The Lincoln Undertaking deleted the screenshot, however not earlier than sparking intense backlash. Schmidt apologized for the episode in his assertion, saying, “it’s my job because the senior chief to just accept duty for the large misjudgment to launch” the messages.
The Lincoln Undertaking’s funders have begun distancing themselves. Senate Majority PAC, the highest Democratic outdoors group targeted on Senate races, and Majority Ahead, an affiliated nonprofit, gave $1.9 million to Lincoln Undertaking in October, on the top of the election. Lincoln Undertaking had been spending on advertisements towards GOP senators, together with in essential races in South Carolina and Maine.
J.B. Poersch, the president of Senate Majority PAC, mentioned in an announcement that his group wouldn’t work with Lincoln Undertaking sooner or later amid the allegations of harassment and different wrongdoing which have emerged.
“In October, 2020 Senate Majority Pac and Majority Ahead supplemented a small set of Lincoln Undertaking promoting in Senate marketing campaign states,” Poersch mentioned within the assertion. “Present allegations relating to Lincoln Undertaking’s operation raises alarming questions. Given the burden of those allegations, SMP is not going to work with Lincoln Undertaking sooner or later.”
James Arkin contributed to this report.