The story on the Lincoln Project’s John Weaver, who was recently exposed as a predator of young men by offering them jobs for sex, was originally broken by Ryan Girdusky earlier last month. We’ve posted on Girdusky before who appears to be a credible reporter with solid sources.
In the case of this story, Girdusky tells The Hill’s Rising that his sources were many and that John Weaver being a predator was not a secret in Washington:
Girdusky said this began as he was followed by John Weaver on Twitter, which led to him getting warnings from Weaver’s victims who noticed the follow. When he started investigating these claims, he said young men came out of the woodwork to tell him about Weaver’s predator ways.
Most of the victims Weaver followed on Twitter were college-age young men with a rainbow flag in their avatar, according to Girdusky. He said at the time it wasn’t known that Weaver had solicited sex from a 14-year-old boy. That didn’t come out until the New York Times ran their story on Weaver this past weekend.
Girdusky points out, though, that it was not a well-kept secret that Weaver was a creep and had a problem. He said many in the political class knew about it. In fact he notes that the number of victims Weaver had over a five year span was close to 100 young men. Hard to keep a secret when your victim pool is that large.
He also mentioned a well-known Never Trumper, a household name even, who intentionally stayed away from the Lincoln Project because he didn’t want to be associated with Weaver because he had this predator reputation.
Fast forward to early January, when Girdusky broke the initial story on Weaver (not about the 14-year-old boy), he said that the Lincoln Project was SILENT about it. Axios then broke their own story about it and at that point Weaver decided to admit he was gay and step down from the group, claiming that all of his interactions with these men was consensual. The Lincoln Project issued a statement just deferring to Weaver’s statement.
It was only after the New York Times broke their story, which included that a 14-year-old boy was also a victim, that people in the Lincoln Project began to feign ignorance about it and claim they barely even knew Weaver or something.
There’s much more in the video so be sure and watch it.