CPAC chair Matt Schlapp accused of sexual assault by male Walker campaign staffer

The radical right conference has been a platform for homophobic hate, and bile against LGBTQ people. Another anti-gay hypocrite is exposed.

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Roger Sollenberger at The Daily Beast published a bombshell story last night — and the evidence is rock solid: A man on Herschel Walker’s campaign staff, who is not named in the story, accused Conservative Political Action Conference chair Matt Schlapp of sexual assault, and is demanding Schlapp resign.

If Schlapp, who heads the American Conservative Union, which sponsors CPAC, doesn’t resign or denies the story the man says he will come out publicly.

The staffer reported the incident to the Walker campaign at the time, which offered “nothing but support,” the man said, and actually told the staffer to tell Schlapp that he was uncomfortable. The staffer told several people, including his wife, right away, and made videos discussing how violated he felt. Schlapp’s attorney is denying the accusation but this is one of those stories that you read and say, “They got him!”

Jeffrey Levin 🇺🇦 @jilevin

CPAC chair Matt Schlapp accused of sexual assault by male Herschel Walker staffer: Prominent conservative activist Matt Schalpp sexually fondled a staffer for Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker as he was driving Schlapp back to .. via TheWeek

bit.lyCPAC chair Matt Schlapp accused of sexual assault by male Herschel Walker staffer

Apparently, Schlapp, who is married to Mercedes Schlapp, who worked in Trump’s White House — a MAGA power couple — had his hands all over the man, who was escorting Schlapp to Walker campaign events, while they were at a bar having drinks. Afterward, Schlapp groped the staffer’s crotch while in the car. The Daily Beast has in its possession emails and texts — including from Schlapp, trying to talk with the man after he said he was uncomfortable — that confirm something very problematic happened.

From The Week:

The alleged sexual assault took place after Schapp had bought the staffer drinks at two bars, The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger reported Thursday night.

"It was a public space, and I was thinking that he got the hint," the staffer told The Daily Beast. "But it escalated." He said that as he drove Schlapp back to the hotel, Schlapp reached over and "fondled" his crotch for an extended period as he froze in shock, calling the episode "scarring" and "humiliating." He said he declined Schlapp's invitation to come up to his room. 

In videos he recorded right after the incident, which he shared with The Daily Beast as well as his wife and another person close to him, the staffer said Schalpp "put his hands on me in a sustained and unsolicited and unwanted manner," and "grabbed my junk and pummeled it at length," adding that the incident left him feeling "so f--king dirty." He said he informed the Walker campaign the next morning, and felt "nothing but support" from campaign officials. 

Sollenberger reports that the Walker campaign "confirmed the details of the campaign's involvement as the staffer described it.” The staffer, a Republican who is currently working for another Republican politician, declined to report it at the time, he said, because he didn’t want to hurt Walker’s campaign. He didn’t want to go public right now because he’s working for another political official. But is prepared to do so, as the Daily Beast reported:

We are withholding the staffer’s name at his request, citing concerns of drawing attention to himself while embarking on his first weeks in a new job in Republican politics. He said he would come forward with his real name if Schlapp denied his claims.

This, yet again, shows the brutal hypocrisy of conservatives and Republicans who promote hatred against LGBTQ people. While Schlapp eventually allowed the Log Cabin Republicans a table at CPAC after they’d been banned for a few years including under his tenure, he also has made CPAC a platform for homophobia and transphobia.

I’ve covered CPAC for years — until the pandemic struck — and not only witnessed the anti-LGBTQ panel discussions and comments from speakers, but interviewed prominent speakers who pushed a Christian nationalist agenda of hate. And I’ve interviewed, and argued with, Schlapp over allowing this kind of bile. He defended it as part of the “big tent” of the conservative movement.

Just last August CPAC attendees gave a standing ovation to Hungary’s authoritarian leader Victor Orban — invited to CPAC even after he came out against “mixed-race” marriages — who gave a brutal anti-gay speech, which also pushed “groomer” smears:

Hungary shall protect the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Family ties shall be based on marriage or the relationship between parent and children. To sum up, the mother is a woman, the father is a man, and leave our kids alone. Full stop. End of discussion!

I wonder how many more people will come forward to speak out on Schlapp. This Walker staffer was brave to speak out — and there’s certainly more to come from him it appears.

This incident brought me back to when Schlapp offered a prime speaking slot to the gay far-right white supremacist and then Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulous in 2017. Schlapp incurred a lot of blowback for that, even on the right, but defended it as an issue of diversity of opinion, and positioned Yiannopoulous as a trailblazer.

Then comments surfaced, days before CPAC, in which Yiannopoulous advocated for sex with 13-year-old boys. After those comments promoting predatory, pedophilic behavior, Schlapp was forced to dump the extremist from the conference. But even then, Schlapp called him “brave” but said his comments “broke boundaries” that couldn’t be tolerated at CPAC. A weird way to put it!

The chairman of the organization behind the Conservative Political Action Conference defended rescinding Milo Yiannopoulos' invitation to speak at the annual conservative conclave this week, but praised the provocative Breitbart News editor as "brave" for taking a stance against the "chilling of free speech on campus."

(Milo, by the way, who now claims to be “ex-gay,” and was until recently working for Kanye West’s political campaign, claims to have set up the dinner of Donald Trump, West and holocaust denier Nick Fuentes).

I want to know what Richard Grenell, Trump’s gay right-wing former ambassador to Germany and and head honcho among the MAGA gays (and big supporter of George Santos) knows about Matt Schlapp. What does Tucker Carlson’s gay senior executive producer, Justin Wells, know about Matt Schlapp?

Can’t help but think a lot more will be coming out on this story, as the GOP is in complete disarray, during a week of chaos electing a speaker, and as George Santos is under investigation. Seems the entire movement is imploding, which is not a bad thing.