Jennifer Horn, a Lincoln Project co-founder, received a hefty six-figure payout after she quit the group following a sexual grooming scandal involving one of her associates.
Campaign disclosures show that Horn received $375,000, perhaps of hush money, after resigning in February after it was alleged that co-founder John Weaver had sent harassing sexual messages to many young men in an apparent grooming attempt.
In the fallout of the scandal, Horn said that she felt “demeaned” and “lied to” because of her opinion that other co-founders of the group knew about Weaver’s predations but chose to look the other way. Lincoln Project members doxxed Horn’s private communications in response to her objections.
The Lincoln Project appears to be tying up loose ends with these payoffs. They doled out $65,000 in severance to former press secretary Nathaniel Nesbitt. They also paid $130,310 to Paul Hastings, an attorney whose law firm investigated the Weaver situation and produced a report that the Lincoln Report used in an attempt to clear themselves of wrongdoing.
Big League Politics has reported on how Lincoln Project leaders knew about Weaver’s history of predatory behavior but looked the other way to line their pockets:
“A new report has claimed that Lincoln Project leadership thought of turning their super PAC into a media organization and bringing John Weaver on board, even though they knew about grooming allegations against him.
The New York Times published the report Monday afternoon, which was titled “Inside the Lincoln Project’s Secrets, Side Deals and Scandals.”
Co-founder Steve Schmidt held a meeting at his Utah home a few days before the 2020 election to discuss transforming the Lincoln Project into a massive media organization. He said to the group that “five years from now, there will be a dozen billion-dollar media companies that don’t exist today. I would like to build one, and would invite all of you to be part of that.”
According to the New York Times, Schmidt had already filed papers to create TLP Media back in September and October 2020 with Reed Galen, Rick Wilson, and John Weaver. The report said that “its aim was to transform the original project, a super PAC, into a far more lucrative venture under their control.”
But it has been established that Schmidt and other leaders knew about the allegations against Weaver as early as March 2020, despite previously claiming they didn’t. They appear to have been so focused on grifting and lining their own pockets that Weaver’s behavior didn’t really matter to them. It wasn’t until multiple accusers came forward in January that Schmidt, Wilson, and others disavowed and cut ties with Weaver.“
Trump deserves kudos for driving the likes of the Lincoln Project out of the Republican Party fold. The new “America First” GOP has no time for these sort of creeps, predators, and grifters.