The Lincoln Project, Facing Multiple Scandals, is Accused by its Own
Co-Founder of Likely Criminality
Liberals heralded this group of life-long scammers, sleaze merchants and con
artists as noble men of conscience, enabling them to fleece and deceive the
public.
Glenn Greenwald
Feb 12
Lincoln Project founders from l to r: Mike Madrid, Rick Wilson, Steve
Schmidt, Reed Galen (credit: 60 Minutes screen capture)
The group of life-long Republican Party consultants who, under the name The
Lincoln Project, got very rich in 2020 with anti-Trump online messaging has
spent weeks responding to numerous scandals on multiple fronts. Despite the
gravity of those scandals, its conduct on Thursday night was in a whole new
category of sleaze. It not only infuriated their long-time allies, but also
constituted the abuse of Twitters platform to commit likely illegal acts.
That the primary effect of the Lincoln Project was to personally enrich its
key operatives by cynically exploiting the fears of U.S. liberals has long
been obvious. Reporting throughout 2020 conclusively demonstrated that the
vast majority of the tens of millions of dollars raised by the group was
going to firms controlled by its founders. One of its most prominent
founders GOP consultant Rick Wilson personally collected $65,000 from
liberals through GoFundMe for an anti-Trump film he kept promising but which
never came; to this date, he refuses to explain what he did with that money.
A study conducted after the 2020 election found that the groups effect on
the elections outcome was trivial to non-existent not surprising given
its penchant for spending money on ads that aired in electorally irrelevant
places such as Washington, D.C. or which circulated almost exclusively in
liberal cable news and social media venues, and thus had no purpose other
than to enable its consultants to take large commissions from the ad
spending. They were producing ads solely for liberals, with the overriding
intent not of defeating Trump but inflating their net worth. And it worked:
until they were no longer needed.
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Heading into the 2020 election, most of the U.S. media was uninterested in,
if not outright hostile to, any reporting that might have helped President
Trumps re-election bid. As a result, the Lincoln Project continued to enjoy
media veneration even as the magnitude of its scam became increasingly
obvious. But with Trump now safely vanquished, the Lincoln Project is
dispensable, and the protective shield it enjoyed against any real
journalistic scrutiny is like its reputation and prospects for future
profiteering rapidly crumbling.
On Monday, the Associated Press published a comprehensive exposé with new
facts about two of the groups growing scandals. It reported that in June
2020, members of the organizations leadership were informed in writing and
in subsequent phone calls of at least 10 specific allegations of harassment
against co-founder John Weaver, including two involving Lincoln Project
employees directly contradicting the groups emphatic denial that it knew
nothing about Weavers misconduct until the New York Times reported on them
at the end of January. As AP delicately put it, these new materials raise
questions about the Lincoln Projects statement last month that it was
shocked when accusations surfaced publicly this year. The gay news outlet
The Washington Blade on Tuesday published emails and other correspondence
similarly demonstrating the high likelihood that the groups denials
regarding its past knowledge of Weavers misconduct were false, as did New
York Magazine.
The Washington Blade, Feb. 9, 2021
APs exposé also included highly incriminating reporting about what the
group did and did not do with the close to $100 million it received in
the name of fighting Trump and converting Republican voters into Biden
supporters:
For the collection of GOP consultants and former officials, being anti-Trump
was becoming very good for business. Of the $90 million Lincoln Project has
raised, more than $50 million has gone to firms controlled by the groups
leaders
.
Since its creation, the Lincoln Project has raised $90 million. But only
about a third of the money, roughly $27 million, directly paid for
advertisements that aired on broadcast and cable, or appeared online, during
the 2020 campaign, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures
and data from the ad tracking firm Kantar/CMAG.
That leaves tens of millions of dollars that went toward expenses like
production costs, overhead and exorbitant consulting fees collected by
members of the group.
It raises questions about where the rest of the money ultimately went,
said Brendan Fischer, an attorney with the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center
in Washington. Generally speaking, youd expect to see a major super PAC
spend a majority or more of their money on advertisements and thats not
what happened here.
The vast majority of the cash was split among consulting firms controlled by
its founders, including about $27 million paid to a small firm controlled by
Galen and another $21 million paid to a boutique firm run by former Lincoln
Project member Ron Steslow, campaign finance disclosures show.
But in many cases its difficult to tell how much members of the group were
paid. Thats because the Lincoln Project adopted a strategy, much like the
Trump campaign they criticized, to mask how much money they earned.
These scandals multiplied even further in the last week. In the wake of the
New York Times report about the serial sexual misconduct by Weaver he has
been accused of sending unsolicited and sexually provocative messages to 21
men, one as young as 14 when the messages began one of the groups
co-founders, Jennifer Horn, announced: I have terminated my relationship
with the Lincoln Project, effective immediately, citing the groups
mishandling of the Weaver scandal.
The Lincoln Project then published a statement attacking Horn by claiming
her resignation was motivated not by noble objections to what appeared to be
their protection of a sexual predator but instead in an unsurpassed case
of projection accused her of being driven solely by money: namely, that
she had demanded, and they rejected, an immediate signing bonus payment
of $250,000 and a $40,000-per-month consulting contract. Revealingly, the
group refused to say how Horns supposedly outrageous pecuniary demands
compare to the payments actually received by her male co-founders and other
Lincoln Project operatives.
When AP inquired about this, they bizarrely proclaimed that they would
provide transparency of their finances only after Trump does. The Lincoln
Project will be delighted to open its books for audit immediately after the
Trump campaign and all affiliated super PACs do so, Steve Schmidt said in
response to inquiries about how much of the donations went into their
personal bank accounts rather than ads designed to defeat Trump.
And then, on Thursday night, The New York Times reported that leaders of
the Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump media venture, came under fire on
Thursday night from six former workers demanding to be released from
nondisclosure agreements in order to talk about John Weaver, a co-founder
who harassed young men online. Those six former employees accused the
Lincoln Project of having protected a predator. The article also cited
Horns claims that when she raised objections about the groups treatment of
the Weaver allegations, she was yelled at, demeaned and lied to.
So that has been the trajectory of the Lincoln Project over the past couple
of months. They are drowning in allegations of financial scamming, lying to
the public and to their own employees about what they knew about a predator
at the top level of their organization, and engaging in open warfare among
themselves playing out in public in the pettiest yet most vindictive ways.
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But even by their lowly standards, the Lincoln Projects behavior last night
was so appalling and likely illegal that it provoked widespread
denunciations even from many of the groups most prominent supporters, who
have thus far been willing to tolerate every deceitful, grifting, unethical
and profiteering transgression. Accusations that their behavior was a
violation of federal law were notably led by long-time lawyer George
Conway, who shot to cable news and social media stardom in the Trump years
by vehemently denouncing Trump despite being married to the former
Presidents close adviser, Kellyanne Conway. But what made Conways
accusations so stinging is that he is one of the co-founders of the Lincoln
Project, one of the most prominent representatives of the group since its
inception.
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Conways public accusation of criminality against his own group came after
they tried to intimidate a journalist, Amanda Becker, who was working to
report on the groups various scandals. Shortly before 11:00 pm ET on
Thursday night, the Lincoln Project Twitter account, which has close to
three million followers, announced that it was posting the private
communications between Becker and Jennifer Horn, the groups co-founder who
recently resigned, in order to reveal how the two were, in their words,
conspiring to produce a smear job on the Lincoln Project.
The unknown person operating the Lincoln Projects Twitter page then posted
excerpts of the inbox of Jennifer Horns personal Twitter account as well as
the private messages she was exchanging with Becker about the story. Whoever
saw those tweets could therefore read not only Horns private messages with
Becker but also the identity of the last six or seven people with whom Horn
had privately communicated, as well as parts of their conversations. In a
subsequent tweet, the group posted even more extensive conversations between
their now dissident co-founder and this journalist.
Now-deleted tweet posted to the Lincoln Projects Twitter account on the
evening of Feb. 11, 2021
How did the Lincoln Project get access to Horns private Twitter account?
Horn herself quickly proclaimed that she did not consent to the publication
of those messages. While Becker, as a party to this exchange, would have the
legal authority to grant consent to the publication of this particular
conversation, only Horn has the right to provide the legally required
consent to access her private Twitter account and publish its contents. But
that is academic, since Becker made clear in a series of tweets that she was
outraged by what the Lincoln Project did, negating any possibility that she
provided her consent to their publication of her conversations with Horn.
After Conway, the groups own co-founder, strongly suggested that they had
violated federal law with these tweets, the Lincoln Project deleted them
without comment. Neither the group nor its typically vocal operatives have
addressed any of the fallout despite numerous media inquiries and extensive
commentary. They have, for once, fallen silent.
Due to their hiding, it remains unknown which specific Lincoln Project
functionary accessed and posted Horns private messages. But one of them,
Rick Wilson, shortly after publication, boasted of it as though it were some
great accomplishment of which he was proud:
A now-deleted tweet from Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, posted on
the evening of Feb. 11, 2021
Conways accusation that the Lincoln Projects behavior here looks on its
face to be a violation of federal law is clearly accurate (for disclosure:
my first job after law school back in 1994 was with the law firm where
Conway was and is a partner, though I remained there only 18 months and had
little to no interaction with him then or since).
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) makes it a federal crime for anyone
who has knowingly accessed a computer without authorization or exceeding
authorized access, and thereby obtains information from that computer. A
separate section makes it a crime to cause harm or damage to the person
through that unauthorized access by, for instance, making the contents
public. The law provides for punishments ranging from fines to years in
prison depending on the motive of the unauthorized access.
The Lincoln Project may claim that it possessed authorized access to Horns
computer because she had previously worked there. But that authorization
would almost certainly be deemed to terminate upon Horns termination of her
relationship with the group, which preceded her private conversations with
Becker. Beyond that, Yashar Ali reported that Horn did not have a laptop or
phone issued by the Lincoln Project, rendering it even more implausible
that they were somehow authorized to access her computer.
But even if one brushes all that to the side and still insists that the
Lincoln Project somehow had authorization to access Horns computer, their
behavior would still likely be illegal since the CFAA criminalizes not only
unauthorized access to a computer but also any access exceeding authorized
access. In other words, if you are authorized to access someones computer
for specific purposes, but instead abuse that access for unauthorized
purposes, then you are still guilty of crimes under this statute.
Clearly, accessing Horns computer in order to publish her private
communications without her consent, after she left, wildly exceeds
whatever authorized access the group can plausibly claim it possessed.
Indeed, it is very difficult to imagine a scenario under which the Lincoln
Project and its employees who participated in this breach did not violate
federal law, which is presumably why Conway, a very careful and accomplished
litigator, barely caveated his serious accusation against this notoriously
litigious group:
Not only have the Lincoln Projects boisterous leaders fallen completely
silent, but they also are refusing to answer basic questions about what
happened here. Earlier this morning, I submitted a list of questions to them
(published below) and they have failed to respond in any way, including even
with their characteristic fake bravado, insults and threats.
They have transformed into meek, mute little mice, hiding somewhere out of
sight. Anyone who has their best interests at heart should hope they are
huddled in their criminal lawyers offices. All of this silence and hiding
and evasion is particularly ironic given the Abraham Lincoln quote they
chose to define themselves, that still sits atop their now-dormant Twitter
profile, which admonishes: You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow
by evading it today. Indeed.
Email sent to The Lincoln Project seeking comment, Feb. 12, 2021 at 8:58
a.m. ET
________________________________________
From the start, it was obvious that this disgraceful collapse was the
inevitable end for this group. The very idea that this freakish hodgepodge
of life-long D.C. Republican consultants were men of profound conscience
defending the Republic was a complete and total joke. They are life-long
grifters, responsible for some of the most grotesque and amoral attack ads
in the modern era, with a very long and recent history of advocating the
exact opposite values of what they claimed to represent once they
opportunistically identified the optimal Trump-era profit model: namely,
relentlessly fleece scared and gullible #Resistance liberals of their cash
by posturing as brave and principled warriors against Trumpism.
But their lucrative scheme could never have succeeded without the knowingly
fraudulent cooperation of liberal networks such as MSNBC and CNN. Over and
over, those Democratic Party spokespeople masquerading as TV journalists
knowing exactly who these bottom-feeding GOP operatives have always been
encouraged their misguided and trusting viewers to regard the Lincoln
Project as a selfless and noble bulwark against Trumpism rather than the
scamming, grifting, lowlife con it so obviously was from the start.
What this sorry episode reveals above all else is that much of American
liberalism, including its all-but-official arm in corporate media,
replicated, in the name of combatting Trump, every unethical tactic, every
deceitful method, and every toxic assault on basic decency that they
insisted Trump singularly represented. They allied with the most amoral
societal actors, venerated the most corrupt factions, and vouched for the
sleaziest operatives in the name of uprooting amorality, corruption and
sleaze. The claimed Trump acted without limits or respect for normalcy and
truth while proudly relinquishing all boundaries, principles and constraints
of truth in order to fight him.
In doing so, they became everything they claimed they were fighting. And
unlike Trump, who is now gone, these unholy alliances and ethic-free habits
that define them will remain and fester forever. That is why when American
liberals, including in the media, look in the mirror, what they see staring
back is Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt and John Weaver. That is the perfect
reflection of what they have become, of who they now are.