The Lincoln Project: reflections on fame, dishonesty and grievance
Part 3: A letter to a The Warning subscriber
Tune in to Showtime to watch the just-released, five-part docuseries, “The Lincoln Project,” executive produced by Fisher Stevens and Karim Amer. If you aren’t a current Showtime subscriber, you can sign up for a free trial.
As I have previously shared, I am doing a series of essays this week focused on the issues that arose from the Lincoln Project’s meteoric rise, and the lessons learned from that experience. For those who have watched the docuseries, my intention is also to connect the dots for some details and events that were not explicitly made clear.
Dear The Warning subscriber:
I write with gratitude and respect for your note and participation in The Warning community. I admire your directness and conviction, questioning my motives in discussing the internal struggles while I was at the Lincoln Project. I will do my best to answer with equal directness and conviction.
I think perspective matters. I appreciate how you see the world. I hope you can appreciate, through my response below, how I see the world and why – particularly with regards to the Lincoln Project and what happened.
First, I moved on from the organization a long time ago. Since I left, I have been critical of it on the occasions it has deserved criticism because I will forever be associated with its creation and feel an obligation to the millions of people and hundreds of thousands of people who financially supported it. The Lincoln Project wasn’t an abstraction to me. It was real. The consequences and aftermath of the smear campaign that followed Biden’s victory and the deliberate, premeditated leaks that made serious allegations of financial impropriety and sexual misconduct were very real for me. In fact, they were profound. They were undeserved and the result of a viciousness fuelled by a delusional narcissism that plays out over five hours in a documentary airing on Showtime.
I have read some of the reviews and they are not particularly good. I don’t think those reviews speak so much to the quality of the filmmaking as much as to the obtuseness of the reviewers, who lack the interest and intellect to understand the deeper meaning of the Showtime series. The “Never Trump” movement — of which I am a certified charter member and from which the Lincoln Project sprang to life — has an absolute moral certitude about the superiority of its position against Trump and the MAGA movement. I will die on that hill. It is the moral and American position. However, being right about a great moral issue — or even working on a moral cause — does not invest personal morality in the participant. What the Lincoln Project demonstrates sublimely is that much of MAGA, the media, and “Never Trump” movement are filled with the same people. Those people are damaging the country profoundly because they share an entitled narcissism and delusional self-regard that has utterly poisoned American politics. Overcoming this will be essential to the beginning of a reform era that America badly needs. I was blind to this reality for a long while. The Lincoln Project experience offered a lesson in humility for me in this matter.
Perhaps it is best to start at the beginning. There was great enthusiasm among the leadership and staff of the Lincoln Project to participate in a documentary executive produced by Fisher Stevens and Karim Amer, except by me. I cautioned everybody about capturing the fame for which they were all thirsting. I said that I wouldn’t stop the documentary and was broadly indifferent to whether it happened. My position was “do, or don’t do it. It is up to all of you.”
The film reveals much. It is a character profile and a leadership clinic for future leaders and campaign managers. It is a mirror that shows the decay of the American political media and its corruption. There is a striking difference between the Showtime documentary and the stories by The New York Times, New York Magazine, The 19th, the Associated Press and others that were shaped by anonymous sourcing. The main difference is simple: there were no names in all of those anonymously sourced stories that savaged my reputation and those of others at the Lincoln Project. There were no anonymous people in the documentary. The anonymous sources were led by Conor Rogers, Ron Steslow, Mike Madrid and Jennifer Horn. The result of that combustion was a global media story that suggested the organization was a grift built on a sexual misconduct coverup.
I’ll be honest, I found the experience traumatic. I’ll talk more intimately about that soon, but before I do, there are some things that need to be said because the truth has just now caught up to a blizzard of lies, hypocrisy and unethical misconduct.
First, do The New York Times’ policies around the granting of anonymous sources have any meaning? They do not. Are they taken seriously at all in its newsroom? They are not.
Here is what happened at the Lincoln Project:
Ron Steslow’s firm, Tusk Digital, was the second-highest paid vendor at the Lincoln Project. Responsible for digital data, this is the biggest cost center in any political campaign next to advertising. Following the election, Ron Steslow (and Mike Madrid) had an expiring contract and was involved in a negotiation for a scope of work that stretched beyond the initial imaginings of the Lincoln Project. My stated position at the time was that the Lincoln Project should end its relationship with Tusk Digital and upgrade its capabilities, while substantially lowering cost. I rejected completely the notion that the success of the organization entitled its vendors to windfall profits and lifetime contracts. Period.
Rick Wilson and I had no idea whatsoever on election night that a board of directors had been constituted by Reed Galen that included Ron Steslow and Mike Madrid.
The covert formation of that board destroyed the organization because the general counsel who constituted it would not deal with the consequences of its existence forthrightly. He allowed the majority of the board to shakedown the organization for astounding amounts of money that the organization paid. I refused to sign those agreements and was begged to do it. I ultimately gave in. It was not what I wanted to do.
Ron Steslow took the data of hundreds of thousands of people hostage. I wrote about this earlier this year and will do so again to address an unsolved mystery. Why was it that $1.5 million was transferred to me from the Lincoln Project on December 4, 2020, and returned on December 10, 2020? This money was transferred immediately before Ron Steslow and Mike Madrid took control of the organization in a banana republic vote on an illegitimate, conflict-riven board sanctioned by the general counsel. That money would have been used to meet our commitments to support the run-off elections in Georgia. Both Ron and Mike agreed to million-dollar payouts and walked away from the organization. That’s when the money was returned to the Lincoln Project. I should never have agreed to their settlements. We should have called the FBI. It marks the last time in my life that I will ever be extorted. That I was, shames me. I offer my deepest and most abject apology to every Lincoln Project donor for allowing it to happen. I take full responsibility because I was the last one to say yes and I knew it was wrong. It is part of the reason why I absolutely refused to entertain Jennifer Horn’s outrageous extortionate demands a few months later. I was not a party to, nor part of, the NDA agreement around her $500,000 payout. The total cost of donor money to pay the legal bills and settlements arising from the Steslow/Madrid/Horn shakedowns is astonishing. They total millions of dollars that could have been much better spent on literally almost anything.
I have a conviction about something and there is no amount of any conceivable persuasion that will ever cause me to change my mind about this belief: I have an absolute obligation to tell Lincoln Project donors every detail around what I know happened. Millions of dollars were spent on outside law, investigative and crisis management firms to manage the fallout from the stories about John Weaver. Millions of dollars could have been saved. What it required was telling the truth about what happened. That would have meant accountability for Reed Galen and his decisions. The entire investigative framework that followed the Weaver stories was built — at enormous cost to the donors — around insulating Reed Galen from responsibility for his knowledge about John Weaver’s misconduct.
I also want for this organization to operate at the highest ethical standards. I would like to see professionalism, transparency and accountability attached to the Lincoln Project. I would like to see appropriate salary caps and a compensation committee established in which the donor community can have confidence. In addition, the Lincoln Project should have a diverse, experienced and independent board that can build a stable, pro-democracy platform.
The establishment of proper governance is essential for the Lincoln Project following an action that obliterated the organization in February 2021 and reduced it to rubble. It was an act of cowardice. It led in a straight line to the stories that were leaked by people who called themselves “co-founders,” destroying the credibility of the organization.
I wrote the statement condemning John Weaver’s actions that was released by the Lincoln Project. Rick Wilson, Stuart Stevens, Reed Galen and I approved the statement.
Rick Wilson, Stuart Stevens and I had no idea whatsoever that Reed Galen had received an email from Conor Rogers making multiple claims against John Weaver in June 2020. I first became aware of the email’s existence from a New York Magazine reporter when this story broke. Furthermore, I saw just a portion of it for the very first time in the documentary, despite my repeated demands to see it. The most important thing to understand is this: no person who was involved with the Lincoln Project ever filed a complaint against John Weaver during their time at the Lincoln Project. Multiple national media organizations wrote that Lincoln Project management was aware of 15 specific allegations. I have repeatedly demanded the names of the people who made a claim of sexual misconduct against John Weaver while he was associated with the Lincoln Project. None have been provided — unlike, for example, in the case against former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
The claims were evaluated by the general counsel, and he concluded that no action was necessary based on the email’s content. Reed Galen did not disclose his possession of that email to us. It was a decision that was catastrophic. I simply want to show the scene that poisoned the organization and lit the destructive fuse:
The New York Times revealed that John Weaver had contacted a 14-year-old boy with sexually suggestive messages in 2015 while he was working for John Kasich. John Kasich has never, to the best of my knowledge, been asked a question about Weaver, his chief strategist, and his predations with a male minor. Instead, The New York Times and dozens of other national media organizations linked John Weaver and a lifetime of deception to the Lincoln Project with which he was involved for nine months because Conor Rogers had leaked the email.
What the documentary reveals is that there were people, including Conor Rogers, with knowledge of his behaviour prior to their involvement with the Lincoln Project, and yet they chose to join our organization. Sarah Lenti, too, acknowledges that she had heard about John Weaver’s behaviour prior to her involvement with the Lincoln Project, and that he was constantly sending interns to feed a pipeline for growth. In other words, the people with knowledge of his behaviour blamed those that didn’t for not acting on knowledge about it. Those that did know, like Conor Rogers, Sarah Lenti and Ron Steslow, admitted what they knew about John Weaver during the documentary — in real time — clearly oblivious to the fact that it would impeach their smear of the people who had no idea 18 months later.
Also, Ron Steslow, a Lincoln Project board member, had received this email from Conor Rogers in June 2020, and sent it to Reed Galen and the general counsel at that time. Why did he not call a board meeting to discuss how to handle the situation? It seems that it only became an issue to him after he had left the organization $1 million richer and participated in the leaking of the email to the media.
If I live to be 150 years old, it is inconceivable to me that I will ever witness a greater example of dishonesty, hypocrisy and lethal malice combined with the transactional corruption of the most important media organizations in America, starting with The New York Times.
Ultimately, Reed Galen’s decision to appoint the board and then to conceal the existence of the email made it possible for Conor Rogers, Mike Madrid, Ron Steslow and Jennifer Horn to plot and execute a smear campaign against the organization.
The Lincoln Project was about defeating Donald Trump and the extremist movement. It could have grown into many things, but it didn’t. That’s ok. What it was, was enough. What it is, is something that people can feel free to support if they want. When I left, my view was that the organization didn’t pass the character test it imposed on Donald Trump because it became as self-absorbed as him, and I believe that there are lessons and learnings from that.
I went into a bookstore earlier today and walked through the massive section on leadership. Everyone who is employed is exposed to toxic behaviour. Much of it though happens under the table. It’s hidden. It’s fueled by anger, self-importance, entitlement and a thirst for fame.
There are few examples that will ever be seen on video that show the “Big Bang” moment playing out in real time. It is a pristine example of selfishness and narcissism. The person who does it is Mike Madrid, who goes on to extort the organization for a million-dollar payout weeks before he is given anonymity to make wild accusations anonymously in The New York Times. the “paper of record,” against the Lincoln Project.
The results of his – and others’ – rage, arrogance and entitlement created massive security issues for my family, and those of other Lincoln Project co-founders. In fact, I had to move under relentless harassment from MAGA extremists caused by their malice, Reed Galen’s cowardice and/or dishonesty and the media-sanctioned vengeance of Mike Madrid, Ron Steslow and Jennifer Horn because the super PAC they worked for wouldn’t give them lifetime compensation and equity in a media company that never existed.
My view is that I have an obligation now to completely inform people about the Lincoln Project events of 2020 and 2021 because the Showtime documentary revealed new information. Your comments make a strong case for what you believe is important. I hear you. This is important to me. I moved on from the Lincoln Project a long time ago. I was wondering when the truth would catch up. Now it has. I am at peace with that.
Steve
This morning I thought I'd take a break from this and the weighty issues that come with it. Alas, your title reeled me in, and I mean that in a positive sense. I have seen four episodes of the series.
I believe this is the most sobering piece you have written to date. I truly hope it was cathartic for you. Many of us have been there - certainly not on this scale - in setting out to do something for a cause greater than ourselves only to be shunted off or blocked by jealous, envious, devious, and small-minded palace politics. It can be dispiriting and sometimes even depressing. You fought the good fight, Steve. I don't have hard corollary statistics to back it up, but I'm willing to bet it made a crucial difference in the 2020 election. As I said elsewhere, it gave many of us hope.
As to the New York Times comments, that was a cold splash of water in the face for me. I have naively believed - wanted to believe, really - that some integrity exists out there on both journalistic sides of the political equation. Moreover, it's bad for our country not to have a fourth estate that that we can habitually depend on for the truth. As citizens, we must constantly hold those of the fourth estate to account - no matter what side of the political plate they bat from.
Your further explanations are appreciated. I successfully ran a NFP for many years and at a point a board chair decided he wanted my job, and he railroaded me... even got the state’s AG involved. It took me 2 years and hundreds of thousand legal dollars to persevere. In the end I got most if my contract but am left with a kind of trauma in the aftermath. He remains the CEO, they gerryrigged the mission and cut the soul out of the organization. There is no recovering from that.
My unanswered question is, now when we need it more than ever,
who and what will sustain the battle against trump and the anti democracy forces??