For nearly a year, we warned you that the Lincoln Project was nothing but a heinous grift for political operatives displaced by Donald Trump’s ascendancy. Now, Amanda Becker of the 19th has confirmed what we all knew: The scolds involved in that organization knew all along that founder John Weaver was a serial sexual predator.
Of course they did. Weaver’s reputation evidently preceded him as an open secret in Washington. The idea that fellow swamp operatives such as Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson wouldn’t know about his antics is laughable.
It’s never a great sign for a saga when Karl Rove acts as the Cassandra with a conscience, but so the story of Weaver begins. As early as 1988, Rove was aware of Weaver’s conduct. His attempts to publicize it were written off by the Atlantic in 2004 as political “dirty tricks.” Since then, Weaver’s career famously flamed out. He upset John McCain so badly that he was banned from the former presidential candidate’s funeral — as were Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace. Then, Weaver went on to assist the failing political campaigns of John Huntsman and John Kasich, only to wind up taking six figures from the Kremlin as a Russian agent.
All of this is to say that it would have been an easy call to ban Weaver from the Lincoln Project, or to refuse to work with him, speaking from a purely strategic point of view — not to mention that it would have been the right thing morally. Yet the possibility for the grift was too good. So what if Weaver preyed on children as young as 14? He could help upset the former president with ads spreading the same conspiracy theories and election lies that caused the storming of the Capitol and make all his buddies millionaires while doing it.
A reminder that the Lincoln Project has always been terrible. In early January (just before the Capitol riot) the Lincoln Project was promoting election fraud conspiracies from people like Lin Wood & Nick Fuentes to create doubt in the electoral process & hurt GOP voter turnout. https://t.co/rwwrd0NTsX
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) February 16, 2021
The Lincoln Project gambled that it could get away with keeping a predator in its ranks not only because of the media’s blind adoration for any “former Republican” willing to declare Orange Man Bad but also because Weaver himself had gotten away with it for decades. That they all knew isn’t shocking. It’s that they’re finally facing consequences that’s the real story.
