The Lincoln Project is going to spend dark money trying to take out ten of California’s Republican members of Congress. The founder of the group is Mike Madrid a delegate to the State Republican Party. He campaigned around the nation for the defeat of President Trump and seven Republican U.S. Senators. Complaints were filed against him—and the Chair of the California Republican Party has been silent about the Lincoln Projects effort to defeat Congressman Kevin McCarthy, Devin Nunes and the others. Instead she protected Madrid from being thrown out of the Party or even censured by the Board of Directors.
Imagine if the GOP has a candidate for Governor that some do not like—she has just given permission to demand, smear and defeat the GOP nominee. She has taken away Party endorsement of conservatives—without allowing them to defend themselves. What happens if some decide to denounce nominees ofr the House, Assembly or Senate—she has given permission to everyone in the State to pile on—facts and truth no longer matter.
I would hope that Cong. McCarthy and the others demand the State Republican Party defend and support them. That is why new leadership is needed.
“The Lincoln Project released an ad Wednesday urging members of Congress to vote to both impeach and convict Trump of inciting insurrection. The organization also aired an ad in California urging staff employed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to “quit en masse” following Trump supporters’ Jan 6. attack on the Capitol.
The Lincoln Project receives millions of dollars from so-called dark money groups, 501(c)(4) nonprofits that are not required to disclose their funders. Defending Democracy Together is itself a 501(c)(4) organization that props up its affiliated super PACs with millions of dollars from undisclosed sources.
Anti-Trump group launches $1M billboard campaign calling on Cruz, Hawley, McCarthy to resign
Nine Republican House members are also being targeted in the effort.
By LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ, Politico, 1/29/21
The anti-Trump Republican Accountability Project is kicking off a $1 million billboard campaign Thursday that targets 12 Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
The billboards call on the dozen congressional Republicans to resign for spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election. “You lied about the election. The Capitol was attacked,” the billboards read according to details first shared with POLITICO. All of the lawmakers on the list voted Jan. 6 — hours after the Capitol insurrection — to reject state electors Joe Biden won in November as part of an effort to overturn the election results.
The effort is part of a larger $50 million campaign by a coalition of “Never Trump” groups, which plan to support GOP lawmakers who vote to impeach or convict former President Donald Trump in the House and Senate and to target Republicans who’ve continued to side with Trump.
The billboard target list is composed of “people who are the most enthusiastic about lying to their constituencies about the election being stolen,” said Sarah Longwell, executive director of the Republican Accountability Project. “The goal is to not allow these officials to memory-hole the fact that they pushed this lie, which incited the attack on the Capitol.”
“It took a lot of players within the Republican party to convince the vast majority of their voters that the election was fraudulent,” Longwell added. “We are here to be an institutional memory of what happened and who said what.”
The billboards will be placed in each House member’s district, as well as in multiple cities in Texas and Missouri targeting Cruz and Hawley. Thursday’s launch is the first phase of the $1 million campaign, with additional billboards set to launch soon after. Cruz and Hawley aren’t up for reelection until 2024.
The nine other Republicans targeted in the campaign are: Reps. Devin Nunes (Calif.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Louie Gohmert (Texas.), Madison Cawthorne (N.C.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Mo Brooks (Ala.) and Dan Bishop (N.C.)
“There’s this whole segment of the population still out there who believes the election was illegitimate,” said Olivia Troye, a former national security advisor to Mike Pence, who is now director of the project. “And they’re going to continue to believe that until these people are held accountable, or they resign and it’s acknowledged that this was a lie.”
A video released Thursday night by the Republican Accountability Project compiles examples of Cruz, Hawley, Jordan, McCarthy and the other Republicans claiming without evidence that the 2020 election was tainted. The group will run it as an ad during Fox and Friends and Sean Hannity’s show all next week in each member’s congressional district and in Cruz and Hawley’s states.
Neither Longwell nor Troye is optimistic that 17 Republicans will join Democrats to convict Trump in the Senate impeachment trial. But they both said that voters and lawmakers need to be reminded of what happened on Jan. 6.
Longwell expressed frustration with Republicans’ calls for Democrats to drop the trail in the name of “unity.”
“They have a mantra of move on but we’re not going to let them move on,” said Longwell. “Accountability is a prerequisite to unity.”
