Steve Schmidt, MSNBC pundit, resigned from the Lincoln Project on Friday and claimed he was sexually abused by a man when he was 13. He also described his resignation as partly motivated by a desire to create a vacancy on his organization’s board of directors for a woman.
Schmidt claimed to have been molested by a scout camp medic nicknamed “Gay Ray.” In a statement:
It was just a touch – a light one — and it lasted for only a moment. I was a 13-year-old boy at the Rock Hill Boy Scout Camp. His name was Ray, and he was the camp medic. The older scouts called him “Gay Ray,” and taunted and teased us about our inevitable encounter with him when the itch of the mosquito bites because too much to bear. It happened almost precisely like the older kids said it would. Covered in bites, I went to the Medical Cabin. He told me to take my clothes off. I complied. He looked at my body an examined the bites, just like they said he would. He began applying an ointment just like they said he would. I remember being paralyzed as his hands moved up my body and brushed over my penis. I remember all of this with perfect clarity up to the moment I was touched. The next part is fuzzier. I just know that I left. Then, I came back to camp, and I must have had a look on my face because I remember the laughing. The look on my face must have looked familiar to other other boys because it was the same one they must have had when they returned from Ray’s exam. Camp continued, and I made sure never to return [to] the medical cabin.
Schmidt described the molestation as “a touch on a table at age 13 that lasted seconds has been a defining event in my life.”
Schmidt also wrote,”Something else happened in that cabin that day. The extroverted little boy who walked in died; an introverted boy with deep trust issues walked out. Before that day, I have no memory of ever feeling anger. After that day – and despite the passage of so many years – the anger has never left.”
Schmidt characterized his claims as an opportunity to help others. He stated, “I am talking about my struggle in an open way for the first time because maybe it will be the case that I can help just one person understand what I couldn’t until I was almost 50 years old. It wasn’t my fault.”
Schmidt framed his resignation as a move to assist women by opening up a vacancy on the organization’s board for a woman:
Presently, the Lincoln Project is made up of four middle-aged white men. That composition doesn’t reflect our nation, nor our movement. I am resigning my seat on the Lincoln Project board to make room for the appointment of a female board member as the first step to reform and professionalize the Lincoln Project.
Schmidt maintained his claim of ignorance regarding Lincoln Project cofounder John Weaver’s “misconduct.” Weaver was accused of sending explicit messages to nearly dozens of young men, offering them career advice and jobs in exchange for sexual favors.
“This is my truth,” Schmidt added. “John Weaver has put me back into that faraway cabin with Ray, my Boy Scout leader.” He characterized Weaver as a “skilled liar” and “predator.”
Schmidt derided Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham in his statement:
During these last weeks, I have been consumed by anger and rage as I have seen the attacks from a rancid collection of liars, thugs, and fascists, including Donald Trump Jr. and Laura Ingraham, attack the Lincoln Project, my character and the character of my friends over Weaver’s amoral predations.
In an open letter, six former anonymous employees and associates of the Lincoln Project said they shared a “reasonable fear of retaliation” from Schmidt and other organizational executives if they publicly identify themselves in connection with their allegations of Weaver’s sexual solicitations. They added that they “lack any confidence in the organization’s remaining leadership to properly handle our allegations (or knowledge of) sexual harassment and sexual assault by John Weaver.”
The anonymous former Lincoln Project employees and associates identified Schmidt as having used a “public Twitter smear” against Jennifer Horn, another of the organization’s co-founders who recently resigned over what she said was Weaver’s “grotesque and inappropriate behavior” and “longstanding deceptions.”
Despite the Lincoln Project’s founders describing and marketing themselves as “conservatives,” the organization spent its entire political advertising budget assisting Democrats.