'What a F**king Creep' — Text Substantiates Sexual Assault Claim Against Matt Schlapp
A newly revealed text message exchange reviewed by CNN lends support to a Republican campaign staffer's claims that Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Conservative Union (ACU) and an ardent Trump supporter, "groped" and "pummeled" his genitals in a "scarring" episode of sexual assault.
After texting a friend shortly after the alleged assault to describe what had taken place, the accuser reportedly received a response that commiserated with him and called Schlapp "a fucking creep."
The unidentified accuser is "a male in his late thirties who was working for the Georgia GOP and Herschel Walker's Senate campaign at the time," CNN detailed. The campaign staffer "told CNN that Schlapp made the unwanted sexual advances on the ride back from two area bars on October 19."
CNN's review of text messages related to the claims included one from Schlapp to the campaign staffer that invited him to "grab a beer" with Schlapp.
EDGE previously reported on the story, detailing that "The staffer... said that Schlapp had 'inappropriately and repeatedly' intruded his personal space at the bars. He said he was also keenly aware of his 'power dynamic' with Schlapp, widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in national conservative politics."
In the text message, the staffer told a friend that after driving Schlapp back from the bars and then declining an invitation to join Schlapp in the hotel, Schlapp was "pissed I didn't follow him to his hotel room."
"I'm so sorry man," the recipient of the message replied. "What a f**king creep."
Later on, CNN detailed, the staffer followed up with a text in which he fretted, "I just don't know how to say it to my superiors [that their] surrogate fondled my junk without my consent."
CNN also reviewed a call log that seemed to verify that after the incident Schlapp contacted the man by phone "to confirm the staffer would be driving him to another Walker event the next morning."
"After receiving the call, the staffer says he broke down and memorialized what happened by recording videos of himself describing the alleged assault," the report added. The staffer shared the videos with his wife and with friends.
In one of the videos, which CNN also reviewed, the younger man described a harrowing ordeal.
"Matt Schlapp, of the CPAC, grabbed my junk and pummeled it at length. And I'm sitting there saying, 'What the hell is going on that this person with a wife and kids is literally doing this to me, from Manuel's Tavern to the Hilton Garden Inn there at the Atlanta Airport.'"
"He literally has his hands on me," the man added in the video. "And I feel so fucking dirty. Feel so fucking dirty. So I don't know what to do in the morning."
The staffer said that the team working on Walker's ultimately unsuccessful bid for the Senate offered him support and never tried to minimize or deny what he told them had happened to him. The campaign assigned a different driver for Schlapp the morning after the alleged assault.
Once relieved of the task of driving Schlapp, the staffer sent Schlapp a text message that read, "I did want to say I was uncomfortable with what happened last night."
Schlapp answered with, "Pls give me a call". The Daily Beast, which first broke the story, reviewed phone records that verified Schlapp then proceeded to make three phone calls to the staffer within a 20-minute period. The staffer did not accept the calls, and Schlapp followed up with a text pleading, "If you could see it in your heart to call me at the end of day. I would appreciate it."
Leadership at the ACU — which is the group behind the increasingly anti-LGBTQ+ Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where homophobic comments from Hungary's authoritarian leader Prime Minister Viktor Orbán have been applauded — called the claims "character assassination," CNN relayed, and declared their support for Schlapp.
CNN noted that the staffer has said he's motivated to pursue his claims against Schlapp as a way of preventing similar assaults targeting others, and also due to "what he described as CPAC's hypocrisy in hosting guests hostile to LGBTQ rights."