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Well, not quite yet. But things aren't looking too good there right now.
The Lincoln Project’s Implosion Has Derailed Its Founders’ Plan for a Media Empire
The Republican PAC is fighting for survival after a series of scandals. And its founders’ media bona fides—MSNBC, the Daily Beast, various podcast properties—could be out the window next, along with its dreams of TV dramas.
www.vanityfair.com
If the meteoric rise of the Lincoln Project—a collection of longtime Republican operatives who branded themselves Never-Trumpers—seemed to happen overnight, the organization’s downfall has been just as dramatic. In the course of a week, damning report after damning report has come out about the group: that cofounder John Weaver allegedly sexually harassed more than 20 young men (allegations he acknowledged in an apology); that it funneled more than $50 million of the roughly $90 million it raised into firms with ties to its members; that senior members of the independent legal team hired by the Lincoln Project to perform a “comprehensive review” of its “operations and culture” are in fact donors to the super PAC themselves. That executives at the organization—including Steve Schmidt—may have known about allegations against Weaver before they were made public. (Schmidt has denied prior knowledge of the allegations. In a statement, the Lincoln Project said it had been “betrayed and deceived” by Weaver.) If true, the stories, which have blasted through the group with bombshell force, represent a spectacular and horrific denouement.