The Lincoln Project has condemned John Weaver, a co-founder of the anti-Trump Republican group who is alleged to have made unsolicited sexual overtures to males as young as 14.
Weaver, 61, is a Republican consultant who worked with presidential candidates John McCain and John Kasich. His alleged online comments to young men were reported in mid-January by the American Conservative and Scott Stedman, an independent reporter who said he received messages from Weaver, data analyst Garrett Herrin and Axios.
Then, Weaver said: “The truth is that I’m gay. And that I have a wife and two kids who I love. My inability to reconcile those two truths has led to this agonizing place.
“To the men I made uncomfortable through my messages that I viewed as consensual mutual conversations at the time: I am truly sorry. They were inappropriate and it was because of my failings that this discomfort was brought on you.”
He also said he would not return to the Lincoln Project after a period of medical leave.
But on Sunday, the New York Times published a report based on interviews with 21 men, one of whom it said Weaver messaged when the man was 14, “asking questions about his body while he was still in high school and then more pointed ones after he turned 18”. Weaver did not comment.
Formed to campaign against Donald Trump and his Republican backers, the Lincoln Project rose swiftly to national prominence. At the weekend, its threat to sue Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was widely covered – as were the allegations against Weaver, seized upon by Donald Trump Jr among other prominent rightwing figures.
In a statement, the Project said: “John Weaver led a secret life that was built on a foundation of deception at every level. He is a predator, a liar, and an abuser. We extend our deepest sympathies to those who were targeted by his deplorable and predatory behavior.
“The totality of his deceptions are beyond anything any of us could have imagined and we are absolutely shocked and sickened by it. Like so many, we have been betrayed and deceived by John Weaver. We are grateful beyond words that at no time was John Weaver in the physical presence of any member of the Lincoln Project.”
Stedman and Ryan Girdusky, a political consultant and the author of the American Conservative report, disputed that account.
“When young men approached them they ignored it,” Girdusky wrote on Twitter. “When they heard I was working on the story they warned Weaver. When I wrote a story they said nothing. When Axios published a story they said he’s just gay. Now he’s a predator. Project Lincoln [sic] lied. They knew. They’re complicit.”
Steve Schmidt, another Lincoln Project co-founder, told the Times: “There was no awareness or insinuations of any type of inappropriate behavior when we became aware of the chatter at the time.”
Girdusky countered that Schmidt “ignored the first thee stories written about Weaver to respond. They ignored it till they excused him with a Kevin Spacey defense and then called him a predator. There are really no words.”