WASHINGTON — Matt Schlapp, one of the country’s most prominent conservative leaders and a close ally of former President Donald Trump, is being charged with sexually groping a campaign aide to Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker in October.
“He reached between my legs and stroked me,” Walker’s former staffer told NBC News in a phone interview Thursday night. “To my shame, I didn’t say anything” to stop Schlapp. NBC News is withholding the staffer’s name at his request because he fears that the allegations against a powerful Republican could harm his own career in Republican politics.
Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, is married to former Trump White House aide Mercedes Schlapp. His organization hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference, a crucial testing ground for Republican presidential hopefuls.
Schlapp did not respond to text messages seeking comment, including one detailing every point in his accuser’s story. His attorney, Charlie Spies, did not immediately return a call from NBC News seeking comment on the allegations. But Spies told The Daily Beast, which he first reported on the staffer’s story, that Schlapp had denied them.
On Friday night, after this story broke, two ACU board members released a statement in support of Schlapp.
“We strongly support Matt Schlapp, and the ACU Board of Directors has complete confidence in his leadership of the organization,” said Charlie Gerow and Carolyn Meadows, the board’s first and second vice presidents.
“We have both known Matt and his wife, Mercedes, for decades. We know the heart and character of Matt Schlapp. And we believe this latest smear attempt is false,” they added. “Unfortunately, the left and their media note takers routinely choose to scorch the earth in their attempt to write off those they disagree with. Whether it’s conservative judicial nominees or good people like Matt Schlapp, they are they will sink to any depth to destroy themselves and their families.”
A senior Walker campaign official confirmed that the aide shared the allegation with his supervisors at the time.
“I found out about the incident the next morning,” said the official, who described top campaign aides consulting on the matter and coming up with a plan to prevent the aide from having to pick up Schlapp again.
On October 19, Schlapp went hunting for Walker in an event in Perry, Georgia, about 100 miles south of Atlanta. Walker’s mid-level assistant was assigned to chauffeur Schlapp, who invited him to meet for drinks that night at the Capital Grille restaurant in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, the staffer said. He believed that the additional face-to-face time could help him cement a professional connection with one of the party’s most influential figures.
When the two men started drinking, the clerk said, Schlapp apologized that the bar “was dead.” The staffer took Schlapp to Manuel’s Tavern, a hangout for Georgia politicians, particularly Democrats, about 15 minutes away.
Schlapp, who drank Tito’s vodka overnight, began “getting into my personal space” at the second bar, the employee said. At one point, Schlapp collided with the staff member’s gun as his legs touched, the staff member said, prompting Schlapp to ask what he was carrying.
“Sig Sauer,” the aide said, surprised to find that Schlapp seemed unfamiliar with the gun’s name given CPAC’s emphasis on Second Amendment rights. Schlapp, who grew up in Wichita, a major city in Kansas, explained that he had no experience with firearms, the staff member said.
“Do you feel uncomfortable looking at me?” Schlapp asked later, making the aide even more uncomfortable than he already was, he said. Before long, he told Schlapp that they had an early morning and better call it an evening.
As the employee drove from Manuel’s Tavern down the John Lewis Freedom Parkway toward the Interstate 20/Interstate 85 interchange, Schlapp began stroking his leg, he said. That progressed, the staffer said, as the two men drove to the Hilton Garden Inn at the Atlanta airport, a drive of about 15 minutes with light traffic.
“From Manuel’s Tavern to the Hilton Garden Inn there at the Atlanta airport, he literally put his hands on me,” the employee said in a video taken early on October 20, just a couple of hours after the alleged incident. . “CPAC’s Matt Schlapp grabbed my trash and hit it long.” The staff member did not post the video publicly, but did share it with NBC News.
“To my shame, I didn’t say ‘no’ or ‘enough,'” the staffer said in the video, a recollection he repeated in the interview with NBC News. “God knows it wasn’t a sought after advance.”
When the two arrived at the hotel, Schlapp invited the clerk to his room, the clerk said. The employee refused. Within a couple of hours, around 12:45 a.m., the staff member began recording videos of himself recounting what he said had happened, which he shared with NBC News. He reached out to senior campaign staff later that morning to relay the story, and was advised how to respond the next morning when Schlapp texted to say he was in the lobby ready to be driven.
“I wanted to say that I was uncomfortable with what happened last night,” the staffer wrote, based on screenshots he shared with NBC News. “The campaign has a driver who is available to take you to Macon and back to the airport.” The aide shared the name and phone number of his colleague.
“Please call me,” was Schlapp’s response, according to the screenshots. The staffer provided NBC News with Schlapp’s phone number to verify that the text came from Schlapp. Schlapp repeatedly called the staff member, who did not answer, according to screenshots of the staff member’s phone log, twice at 7:53 a.m. and once at 8:09 a.m.
The senior campaign official said Schlapp did not attend the event the next morning and did not contact Walker’s campaign about getting another ride to the airport.
“All of this makes me physically sick,” the senior Walker campaign official said.
Both the staffer and the senior campaign official said Walker’s campaign made legal counsel available to the staffer to discuss his legal options and indicated the campaign would support any decision he made. He has not taken legal action against Schlapp, he said.
The staffer said he was speaking to the media to inform others about what he described as predatory behavior on Schlapp’s part.
“If he’d made a polite pass at me and left it at that,” the staffer said, “only me and Matt and God would know.”