Back on January 11, 2021, Ryan Girdusky broke the story of Lincoln Project co-founder John Weaver’s alleged predatory behavior toward young men. Among his revelations, Girdusky reported that in addition to sexually harassing young men online Weaver allegedly propositioned young men for sex as part of a job offer.
When the story broke, the Lincoln Project’s assortment of failed former GOP operatives and self-important former rightwing pundits gave a collective shrug and declined to comment, smugly stating, “John’s statement speaks for itself.” That was published at Axios on January 15th. The story made the rounds on right media, including a segment on Laura Ingraham’s show.
Apart from Axios, the Democrat’s media activist arm didn’t touch it, likely because they see the Lincoln Project as a frenemy of sorts given that both were—and continue to be—on a mission to destroy President Trump.
Fast forward to Sunday, January 31st. The New York Times published the story—failing to properly credit Girdusky by name for breaking it, of course—and suddenly the Lincoln Project is shocked and outraged.
In response to the NY Times “revelations” (that were revealed weeks ago), the Lincoln Project scrambled to release a statement of condemnation of Weaver and to assert their own ignorance of his predatory behavior toward boys and young men.
Here’s a screen shot of the full statement:
The haste with which this statement was composed and sped out to preserve the Lincoln Project’s standing with its new best frenemies among the anti-American left resulted in some unintentional hilarity (via Twitchy).
The NY Times piece includes the following denial of knowledge on the part of the Lincoln Project regarding Weaver’s predatory behavior:
Lincoln Project leaders, in their first extended comments about Mr. Weaver, said they had not been aware of such allegations until this month, when articles in The American Conservative and Forensic News, and an open letter on Twitter from a data analyst named Garrett Herrin, accused Mr. Weaver of grooming young men online.Steve Schmidt, a co-founder of the group, said its leaders had learned last summer from social media posts that Mr. Weaver, who has a wife and two children, might be involved in relationships with men, but emphasized, “There was no awareness or insinuations of any type of inappropriate behavior when we became aware of the chatter at the time.” Mr. Weaver denied the claims, Mr. Schmidt said in an interview.
Girdusky, however, is challenging this declaration of ignorance.
On Twitter Sunday, Girdusky — who broke the story earlier this month — blasted the Lincoln Project’s statement as false, saying the group had been made aware of the allegations when he was reporting them out last year.Girdusky, who has also worked as a political consultant for about 15 years, told The Washington Post that Weaver’s past was like a “worst-kept secret” and that several men reached out to him after Weaver followed him on Twitter last May.. . . . Girdusky said several of the men who told him privately about Weaver’s behavior had also contacted Lincoln Project members as recently as last August “and it was ignored across the board.”
So what did the Lincoln Project know and when did they know it?
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