The Lincoln Project has hit upon some hard times.
For a while this Quisling Republican firm founded by George T. Conway III, Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, Jennifer Horn was the toast of the town. Democrats and NeverTrumpers, to the extent there is a difference, saw them as the giant killers. The were the team who was going to evict Trump from the White House and install a demented, doddering lecher because Principles and also because Grift.
A few days ago, the Lincoln Project’s new friends on the left discovered that one of their creative stars, Ben Howe, had defended the cop who shot Michael Brown while writing here at RedState. While researching everything written by Howe someone discovered that he’d referred to some people on Twitter by using a slang term for female genitalia. A couple of thoughts on this. For the record, that post was imminently reasonable and completely correct given what we know from the grand jury investigation that did not indict former officer Darren Wilson for any crime and which did establish that Brown had grabbed for Wilson’s pistol. The tweets he was fired for were no worse than a typical day in Rick Wilson’s timeline.
Yesterday, we saw the first filing of Lincoln Project that gives the appearance that it is a Scam-PAC. My colleague, Jen Van Laar posted on that subject (see George Conway and His Jealous, Deranged Lincoln Project Buds Are Making Bank Off Their ScamPAC) but this is the key point:
The latest Lincoln Project filings show that a whopping 92 percent of the monies taken in by the PAC during the 1st quarter of 2020 went to either people on the Board of Directors or to companies controlled by them, with the bulk of that going to Reed Galen’s Summit Strategic Communications.
A couple of nights ago, Wilson was on Steve Colbert’s show, specifically, the animated feature Inside the Hill, apparently thinking it would be a friendly venue. But things went south fast:
It doesn’t appear Rick Wilson, the longtime Republican strategist who helps run The Lincoln Project super-PAC, knew he was walking into an ambush when he agreed to speak with the cartoon news anchors on CBS’s Tooning Out the News, executive produced by Stephen Colbert. The Lincoln Project has been received warmly by many on the left for its ruthless savaging of President Trump. And the interview started out in that vein — until Wilson called Trump “a whining bitch addicted to Twitter,” and “Inside the Hill” cartoon anchor Sarah Sabo (Maureen Monahan) jumped in, deadpanning: “Yes, he is a bitch. That is the biggest insult, comparing someone to a woman — I hate us.”
Co-anchor Richard Ballard (Addison Anderson) started the battering in earnest by noting that seven members of The Lincoln Project’s leadership (though not Wilson) are alumni of George W. Bush’s campaign, adding, “I gotta say, we really miss Bush: He always did what was right for the country — and that country being Saudi Arabia.” Things got increasingly uncomfortable from there, with Ballard, Sabo, and their color commentators highlighting Wilson’s past tweets about liberals then digging into The Lincoln Project’s use of its millions in donations.
Now things have gotten even more interesting. It seems that John Weaver, the guy who masterminded John McCain’s never ending attacks on the GOP and GOP voters, has been registered agent of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Lincoln Project co-founder was a literal foreign agent for
… wait for it
… are you ready
… can you guess
— Russia!
Yes, really. pic.twitter.com/OWYsZvBlED
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) July 15, 2020
True, this information has been revealed earlier:
Weaver signed a contract last month to lobby on behalf of the Tenam Corporation, a subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear energy company.
Weaver will lobby Congress and the Trump administration on “sanctions or other restrictions in the area of atomic (nuclear) energy, trade or cooperation involving in any way the Russian Federation,” according to a disclosure filing.
The six-month contract is worth $350,000, plus expenses, with an option to extend if necessary. “Time is of the essence in the Agreement,” the contract reads, according to a copy filed with the Justice Department.
That said, the information is much more hilarious now that Lincoln Project has run ads criticizing Trump for his non-existent ties to Russia
I don’t have any great objection to, as one of the Colbert characters said, to these grifters vacuuming up cash to lavish upon their own bank accounts. No one has yet identified an audience that Lincoln Project appeals to that matters. I’m sure Democrats like seeing the Quisling caucus in action…though not so much as to give them a pass on their sins…and disaffected NeverTrumpers love seeing other losers validate their opinions. Is Lincoln Projects video or ‘door to door’ work move the needle? No. Of course not.
One wonders, though, if this is an outfit which was formed because of ‘muh principles,’ how can they fire Ben Howe and keep Rick Wilson, if offensive tweets are a firing offense? How can they allow someone who has been an actual Russian agent of influence to hold a leadership role and criticize President Trump for not nuking Moscow or something similarly stupid? They can’t and that tells you what you need to know.
