Two former officials call on The Lincoln Project to close amid scandals
Fox News’ ‘Outnumbered’ panel reacts to The Lincoln Project facing calls from two former top officials to shut down over a growing list of scandals, including accusations the group ignored sexual harassment claims against co-founder John Weaver.
"The View" co-host Meghan McCain and her husband, Federalist publisher and Fox News contributor Ben Domenech, lit into Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway on Twitter Monday after the conservative attorney issued a call for the anti-Trump PAC he helped establish to be shut down.
The two called out Conway for appearing to try to distance himself from the PAC in light of damning revelations about one of its co-founders.
The Lincoln Project, founded by several current and former Republican operatives including Conway, former John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, and Florida political consultant Rick Wilson, began to implode earlier this year when claims of sexual misconduct were lodged against one of its other co-founders, John Weaver.
Several men accused Weaver of sending them "unsolicited and sexually suggestive messages," according in the words of Axios. The messages from Weaver, a veteran GOP operative, were "sometimes coupled with offers of employment or political advancement," the outlet reported in January.
LINCOLN PROJECT CO-FOUNDER JOHN WEAVER ADMITS SENDING 'INAPPROPRIATE' MESSAGES TO MEN: REPORT
Weaver later admitted to the correspondences, issuing an apologetic statement after the news broke.
On Monday, Conway retweeted a comprehensive New York Times story that further scrutinized the Lincoln Project, in part by detailing the tens of millions of dollars the group raised through its relentless attacks on former President Donald Trump.
The report alleged that the founders of the PAC were "privately taking steps to make money from the earliest stages", reporting that $27 million from its fundraising cache was directed to co-founder Reed Galen's consulting firm alone.
Reacting to the piece, Conway, the husband of ex-Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, wrote that the Lincoln Project should finally cease operations.
"Project Lincoln should shut down, absent full disclosure of its finances. As this detailed story shows, there's simply too much money that hasn't been accounted for, and, I fear, never will be," wrote Conway, drawing the ire of McCain and Domenech.
LINCOLN PROJECT KNEW OF SOME JOHN WEAVER ALLEGATIONS EARLY LAST YEAR: REPORT
"Your heinous support of a pedophile cofounder won't go away when you nuke this grift operation," Domenech tweeted, referencing the fact that one of the allegations against Weaver involved a 14-year-old who claimed Weaver had asked him sexually suggestive questions.
McCain said the Lincoln Project was "always a grift" and claimed its donors were "conned" into participating in the founders' moneymaking scheme.
"[It was] never nothing more than to make money for the founders and disparage conservatives," she wrote.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Last month, McCain ripped Weaver and Schmidt, saying on Twitter that the two men were so "despised" by her father following his 2008 presidential bid that they were banned from his 2018 funeral.
"Since 2008, no McCain would have spit on them if they were on fire," Meghan said at the time, responding to the mentions of Weaver and Schmidt working on her father's campaign.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Samuel Dorman contributed to this report.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox