A staffer for the Herschel walker campaign has accused chairman of
the American Conservative Union, Matt Schlapp of groping his crotch and
sexually harassing him in October of last year.
The staffer said the incident occurred the night of October 19 when Schlapp,
chair of the American Conservative Union and lead organizer for
the influential Conservative Political Action Conference, groped and fondled his
crotch in his car against his will after buying him drinks at two different bars.
According to the Daily Beast, he described Schlapp who had traveled to Georgia for
a Walker Campaign Event as inappropriately and
repeatedly intruding into his personal space at the bars.
He said he was also very aware of his power dynamic with Schlapp.
Schlapp, the staffer recalled said he had wanted to spend the evening discussing
the staffers professional future.
It was a public space and I was thinking that he got the hint.
I did not want to embarrass him, he said, but it escalated.
The staffer, in his late thirties recalled that while he drove Schlapp back to
the hotel, Schlapp put his hand on his leg, then reached over and
fondled his crotch at length while he was frozen in shock,
calling it scarring and humiliating.
When they arrived at the hotel,
the staffer said Schlapp invited him to his room.
The staffer said he declined and left, quote as quickly as I could.
When he got home that night he received a call from Schlapp to
confirm the staffer would still be able to chauffeur him to an event the next day.
He agreed, but says after the call he broke down and
recorded a series of tearful video accounts detailing the evening.
What is wrong with me?
He said.
This is okay to happen?
He said in one of the videos, I don't know what I did,
it's very sad that this is okay.
In another video, the staffer described the incident saying, Schlapp
put his hands on him in a sustained, unsolicited and unwanted manner.
Matt Schlapp of the CPAC grabbed my junk and he said and pummeled at it at length.
Pummeled, and I'm sitting there thinking what the hell is going on,
this person is literally doing this to me.
From the bar to the Hilton Garden Inn, he has his hands on me and I feel so
effing dirty.
I feel so effing dirty.
He informed the campaign about the incident the next morning,
they took him off of driving duty and instructed him to tell Schlapp in writing
that had made him uncomfortable, which he did.
Schlapp called him three times over the next 20 minutes.
When the staffer did not answer or return the calls, Schlapp sent another text,
asking him to quote, look in your heart and call back.
Quote, if you could see it in your heart to call me at the end of the day I would
appreciate it.
Schlapp texted at 12:12 PM.
If not, I wish you luck on the campaign and hope you keep up the good work.
To be fair to the Walker campaign, the staffer was emphatic that he felt
nothing but support from the Walker campaign throughout the ordeal and
they have corroborated his account of the incident.
Also perhaps worth noting he did not go to police officer Herschel Walker to
report it.
>> [LAUGH] >> Of course,
in a statement to the Daily Beast,
he said Schlapp attorney Charles spies called the allegations an attack and
said Schlapp, quote, denies any improper behavior.
This appears to be now the 12th Daily Beast piece with personal attacks on
Matt Schlapp and his family.
The attack is false and Mr. Schlapp denies any improper behavior.
We are evaluating legal options for response.
The statement said.
>> Yeah.
All right.
>> There you have it.
>> So we're gonna get into Schlapp's hypocrisy in a second.
But first, he denies any improper behavior.
He's like, why? What was wrong with what I did?
What? I don't get it.
Okay, [LAUGH] I'm a Republican.
Don't we secretly fondle men all the time?
>> Pummeling constantly.
Pummeling is our brand.
>> Yeah, CPAS stands for a conservative pummel another crotch.
>> My God, it's over.
It's over.
That's exactly what it stands for from now on, okay?
>> [LAUGH] >> You wanna go to conservatives,
pummel another crotch it's up to you.
>> [LAUGH] >> Registration is open.
>> Yeah. >> Come and get Schlapped.
[LAUGH] >> No wonder his middle name is Sepulveda.
[LAUGH] >> Sepulveda Schlapp.
All right, anyways, I don't even know what that means.
All right, so I do wanna say one thing to the Republican staffer there.
Hey dude, it's not your fault.
He keeps saying over and over, why is this okay?
It's not okay.
What did he say?
What is wrong with me?
There's nothing wrong with you.
I feel so dirty.
You shouldn't feel dirty.
It's him.
He touched you without consent.
It doesn't matter genders, etc, none of that for us.
That doesn't matter at all.
What matters is you did not come close to giving him consent and
he went touched your genitals.
That's crazy.
There's nothing wrong with what you did.
There's something wrong with what he did.
>> I'm so glad that you said that, and I'm so
glad that more men like male victims are coming out with sexual harassment because
this is what women have been saying for decades.
Like, this is why I didn't come forward, and this is why it took me so
long to say anything because I was wondering what I did.
It's something about sexual victimhood that causes people to be like,
what did I do?
Did I lead him on?
And I'm so glad that the men are coming out and saying it too, because there's
something about our society that makes the victims like, did I do something?
Did I invite this somehow?
And it's no, no, no, no, no, no.
You are the victim of somebody who's disgusting,
who you did not give consent to.
Male, female, whatever, on the gender spectrum you are,
you're the victim, you did nothing wrong.
It's on them.
>> Yeah.
And it would have been just the same if it was a woman who did it to you.
And guys, I think the reason why society creates
that reaction, is because we label sex so dirty.
That that's why the guy used the word like, why am I dirty, right?
No, no, there's nothing dirty about sex unless it's non-consensual,
then it's dirty.
That it's wrong.
Like for example, in a weird way we don't even consider violence dirty.
No one who ever gets punched in the face goes, what did I do wrong?
Why was I so dirty?
What do you mean dirty, that other dude punched me in the face.
Why am I dirty, right?
It's so that the sexual element is created by society's weird taboos and
you gotta get past that.
But most importantly in the case of victims,
you've got to get past the idea that you invited it or did anything wrong.
You didn't, you were driving the car, you told him no earlier and
he still apparently pummeled it.
>> I mean, nobody unless you were like, please, please pummel my crotch.
>> You didn't say that.
It's clear you didn't say that.
And by the way, now, one more thing before we get to his hypocrisy,
did he actually do it now?
Of course we can't ever know, right?
Cuz we weren't there, but you put the pieces together in the court of public
opinion based on what people are reporting and have said.
So Daily Beast has corroborated that those videos from that day exist,
that the text from that day exist.
They've corroborated with people that he told a story at the time too so
he's not making it up afterwards.
He's still keeping his identity secret cuz he doesn't wanna be punished for
it in Republican circles, cuz Matt Schlapp is very
powerful within the Republican Party and conservative movement.
And then one other thing that to me makes it pretty clear is
Schlapp's text messages back to him.
If you could find it in your heart to text me.
If I was gonna get driven somewhere, and somebody said, hey,
I can't because of what happened last night and
I hadn't done anything last night I'd be like, wait, what?
What do you mean what happened last night?
I wouldn't be like, can you find it in your heart to text me back?
But that's such a weird thing to say.
If nothing happened last night.
I just be, wouldn't you be puzzled,
like last night you did you didn't do anything crazy, right?
I hope, I assume right?
>> [LAUGH] >> If somebody texted you randomly was
like, I can't drive you today because of what you did last night.
Would you send him a text back saying look into your heart to call me.
You send a text back with what the hell are you talking about?
>> 100%.
And hats off to the walker campaign for
doing what most Republican campaigns administrations never do.
Taking it seriously, respecting the victim and saying, please put it on the record,
write it, write an email to Schlapp himself and we support you 100%.
That's the way to handle these.
>> Hats not off to the Walker campaign for not believing any of the women that
said that Herschel Walker paid for their abortions or tried to pay for that.
So no, no hats off to Herschel Walker's campaign for that.
But in this instance, one hat off maybe one hat off.
>> I was about to retroactively endorse the Herschel Walker for
Senate campaign and now I take it back.
>> So I'm glad I didn't.
But of course with any Republican story like this, it's rife with hypocrisy.
So let's explain why this is particularly noteworthy when it comes to Matt Schlapp.
CPAC and Matt Schlapp who is now accused of groping a man have a long
history of being very unkind to the LGBT community.
In 2015 the Log Cabin Republicans and LGBT groups said they
had been excluded from the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Make no mistake.
LCR, Log Cabin Republicans is actively being prohibited from sponsoring CPAC,
said the group's executive director Gregory T Angelo in a statement
from February 2015.
He continued.
The American conservative union has the right to invite or
not invite whoever they want to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
But they should be honest about the reasons why.
The only conclusion that can be made is that the organizers of CPAC do not
feel gay people can be conservative.
Eventually the Log Cabin Republicans were allowed to attend CPAC but
not as sponsors.
Of course, the vast majority of CPAC speakers do not support gay rights and
promote quote unquote, traditional marriage,
which he acknowledged in his own words.
Take a look at this short video.
>> AC was a group that is gonna stand up for a traditional marriage.
We're gonna stand up for the sanctity of unborn life.
>> That's the man accused now of pummeling another man's crotch,
but- >> Without his consent.
>> Without his consent.
But he makes sure he stands up for traditional marriage and
marginalizes the community that he might very well seems to be a part of.
>> Now again, to be fair, it's possible that he's saying, look, I'm for
traditional marriage, and then while you're in a traditional marriage,
you go and attack crotches on the side.
>> Strong point.
>> Right? I didn't wanna get married to the guy,
I just wanted his crotch, right?
>> [LAUGH] >> So look,
we are the fairest show in America.
So Matt Schlapp actually has a mixed record on this.
So while others didn't want the Log Cabin Republicans in CPAC at all,
he thought that they should attend, but they shouldn't be sponsors.
And from time to time he has defended gay Republicans, okay?
And then other times when pushed back against that idea,
he has fallen back to traditional marriage,
of course gay people shouldn't have the same rights as we do, don't be ridiculous.
So he's conflicted on it.
>> Like in an exact quote, when he said in 2015, if they don't think that's
something they should stand up against, I think that's gonna be discordant for
voters who think the issue is important of traditional marriage.
Voters think it's cynical,
take a position you don't have any intention of defending or sticking up for.
So you're saying if you're gonna be against original marriage,
go all the way, go hard.
>> Yeah.
So look, maybe he's not as extreme as other right wingers in
despising gay people, but he's still definitely on the wrong side.
Meanwhile he knows he has these feelings, these attractions and,
but hey, if you're gonna be a Republican, you have to hate gays.
And so he's like, all right, okay,
I'll pretend to hate myself because I'm in the party of monsters,
ghouls, goblins and we live on fear and hatred.
So I guess I'll pretend to hate myself.
>> Secret crotch bumblers.
It's the party of the down low crotch pummeling.
>> And it just shows the hypocrisy ingrained
in these people that then create positions that they can't defend and
they have to double down in a way that makes no sense.
I mean, to even share a personal story without sharing the name years
ago I had a sexual encounter with a very prominent Republican woman and,
and it was, it was a very fun weird time.
But then I said to her, this is surprising considering the way your policies go.
And she says to me, all of us are freaks.
And I literally during the encounter said then why don't you legislate that way?
>> [LAUGH] >> Kinda ruin the mood but
I had to make the point.
>> [LAUGH] >> Wow,
that was a hell of a interesting story out of the blue.
Okay, definitely in that name off air.
[LAUGH] >> You'll be shocked hear the name.
>> Yeah, I will.
Wow, way to get out there, Laura Bush.
[LAUGH] >> I knew it.
That's what I was thinking.
>> Let's just say mission accomplished.
[LAUGH] >> Can we drop the banner?
[LAUGH] >> But remember at the end of the day,
Republicans are massive hypocrites.
If a Republican is talking, a Republican is lying.