‘Cancer’ at CPAC: Stunning Resignation Letter Accuses Matt Schlapp and ACU of Misusing Huge Sums of Cash

AP Photo/John Raoux

The American Conservative Union, the organization that puts on the CPAC events, was hit with a bombshell resignation letter from its treasurer Bob Beauprez that lobbed multiple stunning allegations, including concealment of money paid to defend chairman Matt Schlapp against a lawsuit, refusal to allow Beauprez to review financial records, and egregious mistreatment of staffers.

In January, Schlapp was accused by a staffer on Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign of aggressively groping him while visiting Georgia during the 2022 election. “Matt Schlapp of the CPAC grabbed my junk and pummeled it at length,” the staffer said in a video he took the night of the alleged incident. “I feel so fucking dirty. I feel so fucking dirty.”

The staffer originally made the accusations anonymously and then later came forward to identify himself as Carlton Huffman. Schlapp vehemently denied the allegations, and then Huffman filed a $9.4 million defamation lawsuit against Schlapp.

The news of Beauprez’s resignation was first reported by New York Magazine’s Ben Jacobs, detailing the damning accusations the longtime treasurer spelled out in a resignation letter submitted to the ACU board of directors.

“I cannot deliver a financial report at the upcoming board meeting with any confidence in the accuracy of the numbers,” wrote Beauprez, complaining that he was not properly informed about the money being raised from donors and paid to attorneys to defend Schlapp against Huffman’s lawsuit:

Days after the lawsuit was filed, Beauprez, a former Republican congressman, wrote that ACU’s executive committee fronted Schlapp $50,000 so he could immediately retain a lawyer. Schlapp hired Ben Chew, a prominent litigator who recently defended Johnny Depp in his lawsuit against Amber Heard. After some back and forth over who should pay future costs, Beauprez wrote he was blind-sided when Schlapp told him that he had raised another $270,000 from donors to ACU and its related foundation, ACUF. His shock grew when he said ACU’s lawyer told him in February at CPAC that the money “was already either dispersed or invoiced.”

“I have to admit that I feel like I’m in the dark,” Beauprez told the board. “I have received no further information about what additional costs have accrued since then … I assume any monies paid are either coming from Matt personally or from ACU/F. But, again, I don’t know, and it is most unsettling.”

Beauprez added that as of the March board meeting, “the full board has never been fully briefed” on the status of the lawsuit or expenditures, there had been no discussion of liability insurance coverage, “no opportunity to ask questions,” and “no mention of the case” at all.

“I thought this was not only inappropriate, but unconscionable,” he wrote. “All of us as directors not only have a right, but a fiduciary obligation to be made aware of what, how, and why monies are being spent, especially involving a corporation insider such as the Chairman,” but any directors who had asked the “obvious and necessary questions” about the status and funding of the lawsuit “have been accused of ‘not having Matt’s back’ and ‘trying to stage a leadership coup.’”

Beauprez wrote that as treasurer he was being treated like a “mushroom,” “[t]o be kept in the dark and fed a lot of manure,” and was resigning because he was “no longer able to in good faith advocate to donors.”

Other accusations in Beauprez’s letter include the ACU violating its own bylaws (paying board members without a vote or approval of the full board, allowing Schlapp to have total control of when the board met, etc.), potentially putting the organization in legal jeopardy. “Thus, we’re feeding red meat to the lions!” wrote Beauprez, making the ACU and ACUF vulnerable to “[a]ny rogue DA” who wanted to target them.

Schlapp had also refused to provide Beauprez with documentation about the finances for the March 2023 CPAC event, according to Beauprez, and was overseeing an organization with a toxic workplace culture that led to employees who “have succumbed to professional therapists and prescription drugs.”

“A cancer has been metastasizing within the organization for years,” Beauprez concluded with a warning. “It must be diagnosed, treated, and cured, or it will destroy ACU/F. You simply cannot survive like this.”

Schlapp did not reply to Jacobs’ request for comment, and has not responded on his Twitter account. He has, however, sent out several tweets and an email lambasting retailer Target over its partnership “with a Satanic designer” and “embrace of radical gender ideology.”