The Lincoln Project, the anti-GOP political action committee, has retained a law firm with close ties to the organization to conduct an external investigation over its response to sexual misconduct by co-founder John Weaver.
On Monday night, the Lincoln Project released a statement expressing a commitment “to creating a positive, diverse, and inclusive workplace environment.”
“The Lincoln Project has retained the law firm of Paul Hastings to investigate allegations of inappropriate behavior by John Weaver as part of a comprehensive review of our operations and culture,” the statement read. “The review process is currently underway.”
A review of Federal Election Commission documents reveal, however, that partners at the firm have donated thousands of dollars to the Lincoln Project since December 2019, the same month the organization was founded.
Elena Baca, partner and the global chairwoman of the Paul Hastings Employment Law Department, has given nearly $2,000 to the organization over the course of less than a year.
A specialist in “employment related issues, such as employee mobility, discrimination, wage and hour, and whistleblower issues,” Baca boasts in her online bio of a win related to “claims of sex discrimination and retaliation.”
A $1,000 donation from Baca was the largest single contribution of any employee at her firm.
Paul Hastings, one of the largest law firms in the country, was initially founded in 1951 to specialize in labor and employment disputes.
Other donors from the firm include Steven Marenberg, who donated $500 in June 2020. Marenberg, another Paul Hastings partner, specializes in “entertainment-related litigation.” In 2005, Donald Trump and NBC Universal retained Marenberg’s counsel in a copyright infringement case over The Apprentice.
Greg Nitzkowski, a managing partner at Paul Hastings, has given $3,000 to the Lincoln Project from July 2020 to October of the same year. A specialist in real estate, he sits on a number of boards and councils, including the UCLA Law School Advisory Board and the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity.
Two other partners, Joe Profaizer and Sam Alavi, donated a combined $800 during 2020 as well.
The potential conflict of interest comes in the wake of a damning report about the Lincoln Project that alleges senior members of the organization knew about Weaver for nearly a year, contradicting previous statements from founders Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt.
In particular, the report stated that managing partner Sarah Lenti knew about the allegations against Weaver since May 2020. Lenti went on to say that other senior leadership, including Schmidt and Reed Galen, were warned in March of last year.
“We are committed to creating a positive, diverse, and inclusive workplace environment at The Lincoln Project and inappropriate behavior by anyone associated with the organization will not be tolerated under any circumstances,” Galen said in a statement to the 19th on Tuesday. “We have already taken decisive action to address internal concerns.”
Lenti did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
That report led former Lincoln Project senior adviser Kurt Bardella, who resigned from his position earlier this month, to call for the organization to close.
“Just shut it down already … it’s over,” Bardella tweeted Tuesday afternoon.
The Lincoln Project did not respond to a request for comment.
In a matter of weeks, the Lincoln Project has transformed from a nearly nine-figure media powerhouse to a pariah of the political consulting world.
Starting with a January article published in the American Conservative, reports over several weeks have revealed an intricate web of deceit and cover-ups by senior leadership over its relationship with Weaver, a former senior aide to John McCain, while continuing to rake in millions of dollars from donors.
Questions about the conduct of other Lincoln Project founders, such as Schmidt and Wilson, heated up last week as evidence mounted that the two had deliberately ignored pleas from junior staffers to do something about Weaver’s alleged serial sexual harassment.
Late Thursday evening, the Lincoln Project’s Twitter account shared leaked messages between the group’s only female founder, Jennifer Horn, and a reporter discussing a potential story. Horn, who resigned from the Lincoln Project in January, said the messages were shared against her will and called on Twitter to take action for the apparent violation of the platform’s terms of service.
Following that incident, Schmidt resigned from the Lincoln Project’s board, although a source close to the group told the Washington Examiner that he remains close to Wilson and will likely stay employed there.
“The Lincoln Project believes the members of our movement and the victims of John Weaver’s despicable and deceptive behavior are owed the facts, and you will have them,” the organization said in a statement last week. “John Weaver betrayed all of us and you deserve the facts presented independently through a transparent process.”
