“Grifting” for a Cause

Last year the Lincoln Project was a big deal in the mainstream media: a group of Republicans running ads against Donald Trump.  It was big news.  It made the mainstream media feel good.  It was a story they could throw in Trump supporters’ faces. 

Except now, we are finding out there were problems with the Lincoln Project.  Last week, the Associated Press reported on at least ten allegations of harassment (I think sexual harassment) by one of the co-founders of the group.¹  Interestingly, it appears the members of the group’s leadership (or at least some of them) were told about this in June of last year, but the AP only reported it last week.  I guess the AP was busy.

But what I found more interesting than the sex harassment claims was something the AP only started explaining in the thirteenth paragraph of its article: i.e., the Lincoln Project wasn’t about being against Trump.  It was about making money for its founders.  Of the $90 million the Lincoln Project raised, only $27 million was used to pay for ads on TV or online.  The rest went to consulting fees to the group’s founders and to payments to firms controlled by them.

One of the founders, the guy with the harassment claims, used money he got to pay $313,000 of back taxes dating to 2011.  Another guy bought a fancy house in Utah for $1.4 million.  Of the $90 million the group raised, over $50 million went to firms controlled by the group’s founders.

In other words, the Lincoln Project wasn’t about principle; it was about principal.  It was a way for the founders, or at least some of them, to get rich.  They could use their high-sounding ads to make money for themselves.

This is not just a problem on one side of politics.  While the Lincoln Project was anti-Trump, Steve Bannon was charged with fiddling with the finances of a group supporting President Trump’s Mexican wall.  Mr. Bannon denied the charges and was pardoned by President Trump so we may never know if they were true.  But we would be foolish if we did not realize that this kind of political grifting is rampant on all sides of the political spectrum.

I have no problem with political consultants making money.  But contributors need to be careful.  They need to check and make sure what’s happening with their money.  It is going for the cause or for a fancy house?  Are they, in effect, supporting their principles or some consultant’s lifestyle?  Too often it’s the latter instead of the former.  Because it’s easy money.
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¹ Since then there have been lots of articles, many of them (for example, here and here) focusing on the fact the mainstream media waited until the election was over to start reporting on the problems with the Lincoln Project, perhaps because they didn’t want to see them, or at least report them, until President Trump was gone.