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WASHINGTON – Influential anti-Donald Trump group Lincoln Project is denouncing one of its co-founders after several reports that for several years he sexually harassed young men seeking to enter politics.
The Lincoln Project, in a statement Sunday, called co-founder John Weaver, 61, a “predator, liar and aggressor” following reports that he repeatedly sent unsolicited and character messages. sex online to young men, often suggesting that it might help them find work in politics.
“The totality of his deceptions is beyond anything any of us could have imagined and we are absolutely shocked and sickened by it,” said the Lincoln Project, the most prominent Republican “Never Trump” super PAC to emerge during 45th President in the White. House, said in his statement.
Weaver did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News and The Associated Press.
The online magazine The American Conservative first reported the allegations of sexual harassment earlier this month.
Days later, Weaver, a strategist who informed the late Republican Senator John McCain and former Ohio Governor John Kasich during their failed attempts for the White House, admitted in a statement to the Axios website that he had sent “inappropriate” messages that he “considered to be consensual and mutual conversations at the time.”
Weaver’s statement came after several men took to social media to accuse him of sending sexually suggestive messages, sometimes accompanied by job offers or political advancement.
The Lincoln Project made its most prominent comments on the growing allegations against Weaver after The New York Times reported on Sunday that the newspaper interviewed 21 men who said they were harassed by Weaver.
One of the alleged victims told The Times that he started receiving messages from Weaver when he was just 14. The messages got sharper after she turned 18.
Other founders of Project Lincoln included 2012 presidential adviser to Mitt Romney Stuart Stevens, former McCain and George W. Bush strategist Steve Schmidt, and GOP ad creator Rick Wilson.
Throughout the 2020 election cycle, the group produced some of the most eviscerating flanks against Trump, questioning the morality and leadership of the president and his aides.
The Lincoln Project said in its statement that “at no time was John Weaver in the physical presence of a member” of the super PAC.
Weaver took medical leave from the Lincoln Project last summer. He told Axios earlier this month that he had no plans to return to the group.
Rebecca shabad contributed.
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