by Robert Schmad
Roughly one-third of the funds spent by the Lincoln Project, a PAC founded by ex-Republican political consultants with the aim of stopping former President Donald Trump, this election cycle has gone to firms controlled by its senior operatives, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.
The Lincoln Project has spent $12.8 million since January 2023, and just over $4 million of that has gone to firms owned by members of its leadership, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of FEC records. Fox Business in 2021 reported that more than half of the $90 million the Lincoln Project had raised for the 2020 election was paid out to firms owned by leaders.
Of the Lincoln Project’s total spending this election cycle, about 31 percent has gone toward various types of consulting, roughly 16 percent has gone toward salary or payroll, and around 10 percent has gone toward producing ads not intended to oppose or support a specific candidate, per FEC records. The organization also spent over half a million dollars on “podcast services” and nearly $1 million on legal fees.
“Their whole schtick is ticking off Donald Trump, and that’s what they sell,” Capital Research Center Senior Investigative Researcher Ken Braun told the DCNF. “They’ve really come up with a unique way of weaponizing negative campaigning against their own donors, and that’s a lot easier of a thing to raise money [off of] than actually being effective. You can show your donors, ‘Look, we said this nasty thing about Donald Trump, don’t you like that? Here, give us more money!’ … I’ve got to hand it to them in a very cynical way, they’ve come up with a really effective way to raise money, without really being effective.”
Lever Communications, formerly known as Joe Trippi & Associates, has raked in nearly $1 million from the Lincoln Project this election cycle for consulting and digital advertising work, per campaign finance filings. Trippi is a Democratic strategist and a senior advisor at the Lincoln Project.
Lincoln Project board member and co-founder Rick Wilson’s firm, Intrepid Media, meanwhile, took in $664,000 from the PAC, primarily for “strategy consulting,” disclosures show. Wilson’s (pictured above) son, Andrew, also received a large check courtesy of the Lincoln Project’s donors, with the PAC paying him $105,750 for “corporate campaign management.”
The Lincoln Project has been criticized for self-dealing since it started operating as a PAC in 2019. George Conway, one of the Lincoln Project’s co-founders who left the organization in 2020, even said in March 2021 that the organization “should shut down, absent full disclosure of its finances.” New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, said in 2020 the group entered “scam territory” due to its high fundraising totals and lackluster results, according to Business Insider.
Among its failed campaigns in 2020 was a $2.7 million effort to unseat Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines, where he won by 10 points, and its $1.7 million spending spree to replace Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, which resulted in her winning by nine points.
More recently, the Lincoln Project spent $300,000 supporting Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s 2021 run for Virginia governor, resulting in Republican Glenn Youngkin achieving an upset victory by becoming the first member of the GOP to hold the governor’s mansion since 2009, Fox News Digital reported.
Braun went on to argue that Republicans should be grateful that money is flowing into the Lincoln Project, as opposed to what he would consider a more competent committee.
“I think any donor that gives money to the Lincoln Project thinking that they are succeeding in stopping Republicans from getting elected … that’s exactly the opposite of what’s happening, and I would want as much money going to the Lincoln Project as possible.”
Among the other firms controlled by members of the Lincoln Project’s leadership that took in large sums from the PAC during the 2024 election cycle was Summit Strategic Communications, a consulting firm owned by Lincoln Project co-founder Reed Galen, which was paid $531,000. Message Mountain Productions, another consultancy owned by senior advisor Stuart Stevens, received $410,000 from the PAC.
The Katz Watson Group, which is run by the Lincoln Project’s finance director of the same name, was paid $384,000 for “fundraising consulting,” and Veracity Reigns, which is owned by former senior advisor Tara Setmayer, got $372,000 from the PAC primarily for “administrative consulting.” Viking Strategies, which is run by senior advisor Trygve Olson, and Two Rivers Public Affairs, a “political advocacy company” where Lincoln Project senior advisor Jeff Timmer serves as a partner, both took in hundreds of thousands of dollars for consulting as well.
Allegations of self-dealing and inefficacy, however, have not stopped the Lincoln Project, as the PAC has spent $657,000 on operations supporting or opposing political candidates, working primarily to stop Trump from being elected to a second term, FEC records show. Among its recent campaigns is the use of geographically specific attack ads to target people at a Trump golf club in New Jersey, paying for anti-Trump mobile billboards at the Republican National Convention, and attempting to sow discontent within the Trump campaign by running ads advocating for the firing of high-level staffers.
“In truth, not even Trump or his supporters were the real target audience for the Lincoln Project’s attacks,” Braun wrote in 2022. “Trump & Co. were instead the bait used [to] hook the real target: the tens of millions of Trump haters … and their money.”
Wilson, Trippi, Stevens, Galen, Watson, Setmayer, Olson, Timmer and the Lincoln Project did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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Robert Schmad is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Rick Wilson” by Rick Wilson and “Trump Rally” is by TeamTrump.
