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CPAC Honcho Matt Schlapp Slapped With Sexual Assault & Racial Discrimination Suits [1]
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Date: 2023-09-05
Schlepp’s Wife Calls Daily Beast “Satan’s Publication”
You wouldn’t recognize him on the subway; at a baseball game; or in line at a McDonalds. However, Matt Schlapp has been around the block more than a few times, being a tirelessly influential fixture in right-wing Republican Party politics for many years. Schlapp, the Chairman of the American Conservative Union -- the company that organizes the influential Conservative Political Action Conference known as CPAC -- is currently being sued for sexual battery, and in a separate suit for racial discrimination. After a recent report in the Daily Beast detailing the suit, Schlapp’s wife, Mercedes, labeled the news organization “Satan’s publication.”
Regina Bratton, another former employee of CPAC, “is suing the group, alleging racial discrimination and defamation by her former bosses, including the influential organization’s leader, Matt Schlapp,” The Washington Post’s Maegan Vazquez and Beth Reinhard reported on September 1 (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/01/cpac-matt-schlapp-lawsuit/).
Bratton “who worked as a communications and marketing supervisor in 2021 and 2022, said in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Virginia on Friday that she was the only African American employee out of about 30 employees, interns and volunteers across CPAC.She claims she faced hostility up and down the chain of command,” The Post reported.
“The lawsuit also names as defendants CPAC’s parent organization, the American Conservative Union, and its foundation arm. Schlapp, a prominent ally of former president Donald Trump; Schlapp’s wife and CPAC senior fellow Mercedes Schlapp; and general counsel David Safavian are also listed as defendants,” The Post pointed out.
Evidently invoking Satan is nothing new for the Sclapps. Last year, when several employees resigned in protest from CPAC, “the Schlapps turned to a priest to evict satanic spirits from the D.C.-area offices, according to multiple people with knowledge of the exorcisms,” The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger recently reported (
https://www.thedailybeast.com/matt-schlapp-held-an-exorcism-at-cpac-offices-after-junior-employees-resigned). “The priest, sources said, sprinkled holy water around the CPAC premises and blessed all the staff, regardless of their faith. As part of the rite, according to these people, the priest placed a medallion above doors in the offices and explained that it would help ward off evil spirits.”
Another report from Sollenberger found that Matt Schlapp had “made an offer in March to settle the multimillion-dollar sexual battery and defamation lawsuit against him, but the proposal was rejected, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the matter” (
https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-matt-schlapps-offer-to-settle-the-sexual-battery-lawsuit-against-him?ref=scroll).
“The offer from Schlapp was in the low six figures, according to the sources,” Sollenberger noted. “But Schlapp’s accuser—Republican strategist Carlton Huffman, who filed the lawsuit against Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes Schlapp, in January—turned it down and countered with a substantially higher sum. Schlapp did not accept the counterproposal, the sources said.”
In a statement, the Schlapps publicist Mark Corallo denied that a settlement was offered. “We take seriously our professional conduct and would never discuss the details of confidential conversations between lawyers. But since it appears Mr. Huffman or his attorney have done so, let me set the record straight: There was no settlement offer. From the outset Mr. and Mrs. Schlapp have been and remain prepared to go to trial and are confident of prevailing in court.”
Huffman’s attorney, Tim Hyland, told The Daily Beast that the claim was “categorically false.”
Sollenberger reported that “Schlapp—through spokespeople, surrogates, and legal counsel—has denied that he ever inappropriately touched Huffman, who claims that Schlapp ‘grabbed my junk and pummeled it at length’ one night last October, while Huffman, at the time a staffer with Herschel Walker’s senatorial campaign, chauffeured the CPAC chairman to his hotel after a night of drinking in Atlanta. Huffman provided contemporaneous communications to support his account, which was further corroborated by campaign officials. Several national outlets confirmed the existence of the allegation ahead of Huffman’s lawsuit.”
The suit has shaken the ACU, although the organization has not yet embarked on an internal investigation. Instead, the ACU and CPAC spokesperson Alexandra Preate “falsely claimed that The Daily Beast was ‘on a partisan mission’ with Huffman and his lawyer to ‘destroy ACU/CPAC, one of the most effective and respected conservative organizations in the country, and its leader Matt Schlapp.’ (Huffman, for his part, is a lifelong conservative and Republican political operative.)”
How does Schlapp’s wife Mercedes, the former White House Director of Strategic Communication, fit into this?
Trying to get ahead of the story Mercedes posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “Satan’s publication” is wasting its time among other crises. “Americans are dying of fentanyl, children are being sex trafficked, and violent crimes are happening in our cities while Satan’s publication is writing about exorcisms. Daily Beast is a joke.”
And like any good communications expert, she is all about deflection, spending time trying to divert attention from her husband’s sexual assault charges to tweeting about Hunter Biden.
A few recent tweets:
“Hunter Biden @JoeBiden’s power to get money from foreign nationals & foreign businesses. It’s now time for Joe Biden to prove that he didn’t benefit from this. If he can’t, he should be impeached.”
“Almost half the country thinks Joe Biden is corrupt, according to a new YouGov poll. Americans are getting wise to Joe Biden’s corruption – despite his media gatekeepers nypost.com/2023/08/30/a … via nypost.”
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