Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt has left the anti-Trump media group just a day after he was singled out in an open letter from former employees accusing the group of manipulating allegations of harassment. sexually against co-founder John Weaver and having attacked those who tried to talk.
Schmidt announced the news Friday afternoon in an explosive statement revealing that he was sexually abused as a 13-year-old boy while attending Boy Scout camp.
“John Weaver has put me back in that distant hut” with an abuser, Schmidt wrote, insisting that he only heard the allegations against Weaver in January, when they were made public.
“I wish John Weaver wasn’t a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, but as much as I want that to be true, I can’t change that,” he wrote.
“I’m incandescently angry about it,” he continued. “I am angry because I know the damage it caused me and I know the journey ahead of every young person who trusted, feared and was mistreated by John Weaver.”
“Currently, the board of the Lincoln Project is made up of four middle-aged white men. This composition does not reflect our nation, nor our movement. I am stepping down from my position on the Lincoln Project board to make way for the appointment of a female board member as a first step in reforming and professionalizing the Lincoln Project, ”she said.
The turmoil engulfed the group after reports that senior management was aware of allegations of sexual harassment against co-founder John Weaver as early as last summer, long before the allegations were made public in January. The political news site On the 19th it was reported the same day that Schmidt’s statement that the allegations were a secret vocation in the Park City group’s office, even among junior staff for the November election, and they were known to senior management even before. Staff reported at the outset that the founders created a toxic workplace full of sexist and homophobic language.
Following the Associated Press reports, New York magazine, i The New York Times, Lincoln Project senior adviser Kurt Bardella and Conservative commentator Tom Nichols, who served as an unpaid adviser, announced their departures from the group Friday earlier. CNBC also reports that several donors in the group are considering stopping all financial contributions pending the outcome of an external investigation.
Weaver has been accused of sending unsolicited sexual messages to more than 20 men and of trying to change their sex connections. He has since resigned from the group and acknowledged that he was behaving “inappropriately”, but said he believed the interactions were consensual. (Lincoln Project co – founder Rick Wilson is a columnist and host of Daily Beast podcasts.)
The latest controversy, however, focused on the handling of allegations against Weaver by top management. As questions arose about how much the group leaders knew about the allegations and when, the group announced that it had hired a “best-in-class external professional” to review Weaver’s abuse claims and the management of Weaver’s leaders. Lincoln Project. The group also said any employee bound by a non-disclosure agreement to withhold information about Weaver could request the release of that contract.
But a few hours later, former employees alleged in an open letter, published by The New York Times, that they “don’t feel safe” interacting directly with the group’s leaders, mostly because Schmidt “attacked” and used a “public Twitter smear” against Jennifer Horn, another co-founder who resigned last week to what she called of Weaver’s “grotesque and inappropriate behavior” and “long-standing deceptions.” Following her comments, Horn was publicly accused by the fishing group of a $ 250,000 signing bonus.
On Thursday night, the group appeared to delve deeper into the conflict with Horn. The Lincoln Project’s Twitter account posted a tweet containing screenshots of an alleged conversation of direct Twitter messages between Horn and Amanda Becker, a journalist The 19th. The tweets were deleted after the group accused Becker of “preparing to publish defamation work” with Horn as the source.
Schmidt took responsibility for the tweet on Friday: “This direct message should never be made public. My job as the main leader is to take responsibility for the terrible misjudgment to free him. “
He also apologized directly to Horn and Becker.
“I let my rage turn a business dispute into a public war that has distracted me from fighting American fascism,” he said, adding that Horn “deserved better than me.”