Archive for July 24th, 2010

Anatomy of a Scandal: Why conservatives nationwide should care about what Lee Roupas has done to the Cook County GOP

Posted at July 24, 2010 by HillBuzz // Hillbuzz

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For the last week and a half, we’ve been reporting on a sex scandal and coverup rocking the Cook County GOP and the Chicago Young Republicans politically-flavored social networking club. This matter affects conservatives on a national level because it’s a case study in why Republicans continue to lose elections to Democrats, despite conservative policies remaining better for the vast majority of Americans. The reason conservatives lose is because there is something seriously wrong with the Republican Party from the bottom up. At the city, county, and state levels, the GOP is corrupt, and riddled with what we call “Romney Guys”: young, unscrupulous, protect-their-own-at-all-costs, opportunists and schemers who allow their own personal ambition and inability to accept responsibility for their actions to doom the conservative cause. Instead of acting in the best interests of conservatism, these Romney Guys are only in this for themselves, and make terrible decisions to advance their own careers as quickly as possible regardless of the damage that does to the party and the principles it advocates.

Lee Roupas, Chairman of the Cook County Republican Party, has created a distracting and damaging mess in Chicago by abusing his position to not only protect a fellow Romney Guy, but also to cater to a wealthy GOP donor who meddled in the daily operating affairs of the party at the county and city levels, much to the party’s detriment. Conservatives who wonder why the GOP so often stumbles need to pay close attention to the amount of influence large donors have on staffing decisions, particularly when those donors are interfering in hiring because they want to advance favored pets regardless of the impact they’d have on the organization.

What is happening in Chicago happens in the GOP in every city, and it’s time conservatives nationwide put a stop to it.

The Cook County GOP’s recent problems originate in June of 2009 with a complaint filed against a Board Member of the Chicago Young Republicans who tried to force himself sexually upon a young female member of the club. The complaint, copied to the national Young Republicans organization and Lee Roupas at the Cook County GOP, described the man (nicknamed “The Prophet” by members of the club, because of his chronic narcissism, profligate spending, and treatment of club members (both female and male) sexually) plying a young woman with alcohol, refusing to let her leave his apartment, taking her phone away so she could not call for help, pushing her onto a couch and sitting on her so she could not get up to leave, and not taking no for an answer. The young woman left Chicago shortly after this incident, but wanted to make sure the Chicago Young Republicans and the GOP in Chicago knew what “The Prophet” was doing to women, abusing the position of authority he had because of his prominence in the GOP-sanctioned club.

The woman was aware of similar incidents like this involving “The Prophet” and decided to make sure the GOP in Chicago knew what was going on, since GOP politicians regularly appeared at Chicago Young Republican functions onstage with “The Prophet”, fueling his ability to maintain the aura of privilege and power he needed to glamor women. Absent the credibility politicians like Aaron Schock, Bill Brady, Mark Kirk, Matt Murphy, Dan Proft, Andy McKenna, and others gave “The Prophet”, this skinny, blond, bespeckled man would lack the ability to put women in situations where he was able to victimize them. Dazzled by seeing “The Prophet” standing up on the stage, receiving warm kudos from someone like Congressman Schock, women fell for “The Prophet’s” regular lines that they needed to come back to his apartment, his VIP suite upstairs, his private office, or some other location where only they could hear all the political secrets he had to tell them, alone, because he thought they were so very special.

Essentially, the GOP in Illinois regularly gives a sexual predator the set, props, and audience he needs to do the very bad things he does to people.

The June 2009 complainant was a longtime female CYR member who saw a dangerous situation developing with “The Prophet” that the GOP in Illinois was partly responsible for, since they very much helped to create this monster and supplied him with the political mojo that kept his abuse of women going. She filed a complaint with the national Young Republicans organization and Lee Roupas at the Cook County GOP on July 1st, 2009 advising them to investigate the behavior of “The Prophet” so that women would not be seriously hurt by him. In her warning, she clearly stated her concern that what “The Prophet” did to her in his apartment on June 17th, 2009 seemed indicative of a dangerous pattern this man was engaged in — one that could lead to him keeping a woman against her will and forcing himself upon her sexually after he’d gotten her alone using his political razzle dazzle as a lure.

Since the GOP was providing this predator with his mojo, the GOP needed to stop enabling this behavior.

In July of 2009, the national Young Republican organization met in Indianapolis for its annual convention, where the complaint against “The Prophet” was circulated amongst Young Republican leadership. At the convention, several former YR members (aged out of the group after 40, but maintaining mentorship roles with the club) were given the complaint and advised of the serious situation unfolding in Chicago, where “The Prophet” was essentially swimming the YR waters like a shark, hunting for seals in this ample rookery. The YR leadership was put on notice that a predator was diligently at work in its Chicago chapter, on its board, basking in great glory provided by the Illinois GOP. This was a recipe for disaster, many agreed, and “The Prophet” received a stern talking to at the convention that put him on notice that he was jeopardizing the good name of the group by abusing his authority position to prey upon women in the club.

The former YR members who obtained the complaint against “The Prophet” at the Indianapolis convention disseminated it to a wider group of GOP confidants and advisors, with this wider circle largely befuddled on how to proceed. The Chicago Young Republicans is a politically-flavored social networking club in Chicago for young conservatives. It’s not technically a sanctioned part of the Illinois GOP and is not controlled by the Republican Party; it is, however, supported by both organizations in that the GOP supplies an endless stream of political candidates and representatives for CYR parties and events, without which the CYRs could not exist. The draw of being a dues-paying member of the club is gaining access to Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and national figures like RNC Chair Michael Steele. CYR members are attracted to the high-profile events, and the chance to further their careers by hobnobbing with such impressive luminaries, thereby winning bragging rights Monday morning when they show up at their offices with photos of themselves standing next to all of these elites.

Since “The Prophet” worked as a volunteer Board Member of an organization the Illinois GOP did not control (but funds generously, in addition to supplying the photo op star power), the excuse Republicans like Lee Roupas offer for “The Prophets’s” behavior is that “there wasn’t anything (they) could do about him”. They claim they couldn’t fire “The Prophet”, because they had never hired him, and that the Illinois GOP bore no legal responsibility for anything he did to CYR members.

But the question many in Chicago are asking this week is did the Illinois GOP bear any MORAL responsibility, since they lent their brand and star power to “The Prophet”, and it was widely known this predator depended on both to successfully lure and abuse his victims.

The Republican Party has a problem with perceptions and reality.

Too many GOP officials are bad lawyers, who went to bush league law schools, and emerged from three years of lackluster study with a myopic view of the law and the ramifications of an organization’s actions. Lee Roupas is maintaining, to this day, that the Cook County GOP cannot be held legally responsible for anything “The Prophet” did to women, and that should absolve both Roupas and the GOP from any culpability in all matters related to “The Prophet”. But, to the public at large, the line between the Illinois GOP and the Chicago Young Republicans was blurred so many times that many attendees of CYR events believed the two organizations were in fact connected, if not one and the same. Roupas shared a stage and a microphone with “The Prophet” at so many events that many members believed Roupas, in fact, worked for “The Prophet”. The Illinois GOP, however, kept listening to bad legal advice and took false comfort in the fact that, on paper, technically, according to their interpretation of the law, they had no authority to stop “The Prophet” — while in reality, the way the general public saw it, this was in fact the duty the GOP charged itself with every time the GOP built “The Prophet” up higher by pumping him, and his ego, full of star power.

In July or early August of 2009, a prominent Chicago attorney was given a copy of the complaint against “The Prophet” that circulated at the Indianapolis YR convention. Realizing how much this could damage the GOP, because of all the star power the GOP lent “The Prophet”, this attorney telephoned Lee Roupas to make sure he knew what was going on and how “The Prophet” was victimizing women in the CYR organization. On the telephone call, Roupas received in great detail all the information that was contained in the complaint. This is important to note, because in July of 2010, Roupas denied knowing about the charges leveled against “The Prophet” until June of 2010. There exists a signed affidavit from this attorney swearing that he provided Roupas with this information a full year before Roupas is owning up to (this, in fact, directly contradicts an email Lee Roupas sent to the 80 Cook County GOP committeemen on July 16th, 2010 where he swears to them that he did not “receive” the complaint until June 11th, 2010…where Roupas, acting on bad legal advice, is playing semantics with the word “received”, and not counting the telephone call he “received” in July or August of 2009 because Roupas realized he had never been given the complaint via registered mail and he believed he could legally deny being provided with a copy until a well-documented letter “received” by many members of the GOP included it).

This is where the crux of the problem rests for the GOP, and why this matter may have originated with a delusional, self-aggrandizing, womanizing “Prophet” but ends up being about the coverup and lies concocted by Cook County GOP Chair Lee Roupas.

For almost a year, the GOP in Illinois knew “The Prophet” was a problem, and that he abused his position of authority to have his way with women (and, we note, more than a few men as well). While the GOP claimed it had no ability to rein this behavior in with the CYRs, it should take responsibility for hiring “The Prophet” to a high-paying position with the Cook County GOP in December of 2009…five months AFTER the GOP was put on notice this man was a problem when the July 2009 complaint was filed.

Sometime in the summer or fall of 2009, “The Prophet” caught the eye of a multi-millionaire cougar in Chicago named Beth Christie, newly retired from the CEO suite of Avent Baby Products. Christie, seemingly bored, with more money than she knew what to do with, and an appreciation for the company of young men, became “The Prophet’s” protectress and bankroller. Running up a $50,000 tab for parties and a marketing blitz he could not pay for, “The Prophet” went to this cougar and asked her to bail him out, which she did happily by giving a lump sum to the CYRs and another large donation to the Cook County GOP, provided they loan the CYRs most of that money to pay off “The Prophet’s” debt.

In December of 2009, “The Prophet” was fired from a staff position on a political campaign when the complaint against him became an unwanted albatross as primaries drew near. Beth Christie stepped forward and made the cash-strapped Illinois GOP a deal it did not refuse: she’d write a check for $100,000 and become one of only 6 large donors to the GOP in this state, but only if “The Prophet” was given a high-paying job with the Cook County GOP under Lee Roupas.

Desperate for the money, the Illinois GOP took the deal, and “The Prophet” was hired to work as Roupas’ second in command in Cook County. Not having a college degree, and having no good references from any position he worked in, this was the only way “The Prophet” could find gainful employment.

This deal between Beth Christie and the GOP happened despite the fact Lee Roupas received the complaint against “The Prophet”, as affidavits attest, back in July of 2009. Without investigating the complaint, speaking to the victim involved, or inquiring whether other women (and men) in the CYR organization had been victimized by “The Prophet”, Roupas awarded this man a high-paying, high-profile position with the Cook County GOP organization — because Beth Christie pressured the GOP to do this, lest she develop crippling hand cramps that would prevent her from writing any more big checks.

Because of the cougar’s protection, “The Prophet” was seated on the dais next to her at every prominent event that followed, where “The Prophet” was able to suck up even greater star power, whirling on the arm of a woman who’d seemingly buy him anything he dreamed of. Roupas was there, seated on her other side, doing whatever it took for him to keep Beth Christie happy, so that she’d never put that checkbook away.

All of this came to a head on June 11th, 2010 when Chicago GOP Chairwoman Eloise Gerson obtained a copy of the complaint filed against “The Prophet” back in July of 2009. That complaint never stopped circulating (check your mailbox, your copy might arrive today), and was never investigated by the GOP, especially after Beth Christie took such a sudden and bizarre interest in the development and promotion of “The Prophet”. When Gerson read about what “The Prophet” did to the young female CYR member, she immediately contacted other women in the group and asked them about their experiences with “The Prophet”. What she discovered horrified her: this was not an isolated instance, but was rather par for the course with the man involved. Gerson was told this behavior was common for “The Prophet”, at every event the CYRs held, including many in which the GOP went out of its way to praise him, build him up, shine a spotlight on him, and give him the star power he needed to glamor the women (and men) he wanted.

Gerson called for an investigation into this complaint against “The Prophet”, as well as an inquiry into why he was hired by the Cook County GOP with this sort of reputation preceding him. ”The Prophet”, it must be noted, is a college drop-out with very limited work experience. The position Lee Roupas hired him into is one that typically requires at bare minimum a Bachelor’s degree (which “The Prophet” does not possess). That requirement, and his moral failings, was deliberately ignored because Beth Christie wanted this man to have that job. Defying Christie meant losing access to her checkbook, which is something Roupas was not allowed to do.

Because Lee Roupas was so afraid of alienating multimillionaire cougar Beth Christie, he instead attacked Eloise Gerson, declaring open war on her for calling for an investigation into that complaint and the Cook County GOP’s hiring practices.

Roupas set in motion a bizarre scheme to vote Gerson out of her position and remove her as Chairwoman. When that failed, Roupas brought an ally from GOP national into Chicago and created a new position for him in the Cook County hierarchy that would usurp all of Gerson’s authority in hopes of shutting her up.

Roupas doubled-down on this coverup because, as he’s claiming to the angry committeemen he’s dealing with now that this scandal has hit the media, Beth Christie cannot be defied and he is not allowed to address the complaint or the reason he hired someone without a degree or appropriate work experience to such a high position in the Cook County GOP.

The reason voters, who may naturally be conservative, don’t trust the Republicans with their votes is because of men like Lee Roupas and the conduct of GOP county organizations like that here in Chicago.

The standard operating procedure for the GOP when faced with any problem seems to be:

(1) Lie

(2) Ignore the problem

(3) Lie

(4) Deny there’s a problem

(5) Lie

(6) Coverup the problem

(7) Lie

(8) Attack the truthtellers who exposed the problem

(9) Lie

(10) Stonewall and wait it out, hoping people lose interest in this

Yesterday, we were told the Illinois GOP’s plan for moving forward on this is to placate Eloise Gerson until the November elections, after which they will remove her. Beth Christie has forbidden the Illinois GOP from firing her favorite Cook County employee, and Lee Roupas is a golden boy highly favored by the current Illinois GOP chair. The plan is to get everyone in the GOP to pretend none of this happened, and then after the election they’ll “take care of Eloise” so that she can’t make any more noise about this in the future. With Eloise destroyed, the Illinois GOP hopes other truthtellers will be too afraid to come forward, for fear of the same thing happening to them.

The end result is that Cook County will still be led by Lee Roupas, who has lost all credibility in his position and has proved himself to be a hack at best, and largely nothing more than a tool of a very wealthy woman who essentially uses the GOP as her own personal doll house. ”The Prophet” will keep his job, too, because Beth Christie insists upon this, regardless of what damage of all this does to Republicans’ chances of winning statewide elections in Illinois. As long as Christie keeps writing those massive checks, she can have any doll she wants, and she can play with him any way she pleases.

It’s a damn shame no one has introduced Beth Christie to Craigslist, because there’s a whole section for women just like her, where she can meet men twenty years younger that won’t cost her over a hundred and twenty thousand dollars to keep gainfully employed. This is even more absurd when you consider the fact that so few large donors contribute to the GOP in Illinois (only 6 people giving $25,000 or more) that Christie overpaid for the clout she’s enjoying, dramatically so. For the amount of money she’s thrown into creating her doll house, Christie could have bought her way into the Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan GOP organizations as well — and could have had play time in a four state radius whenever, and wherever, whim struck her.

There are some pretty cute young dudes in Wisconsin, let us assure you. Milwaukee’s chock full of them.

Conservatives nationwide need to critically examine their own city, county, and state GOP organizations and look for the undue influence of wealthy donors like Beth Christie on the hiring, strategic, operational, and other decisions made by their local Republican Party.

What’s happening here in Chicago is important because it highlights the fact that a single multimillionaire cougar was able to jeopardize Republican chances in the fall by demanding her favorite doll receive a high-level position in the organization, in the face of her threats to put away her checkbook if she did not get her way. How many bad decisions are made by the GOP each and every day because men like Lee Roupas insist they have no choice but to do whatever crazy or stupid thing they are doing, lest they upset a Beth Christie somewhere? It’s never the initial crime (in this case, the predatory actions of “The Prophet”) that dooms Republicans, but their fumbled, bumbled lies and coverups (which always fall) that doom them.

Small dollar GOP donations — giving $5, $25, or maybe $100 — pooled together dwarf the amounts given by Beth Christie and others, but because they are thousands of small contributions made at random by unaffiliated donors, they will never carry the weight of one check written with an agenda in Chicago. One cougar’s ga-rowwwwl drowns out thousands of regular people.

The GOP’s system is clearly broken, and the way it handles problems like “The Prophet” is the clearest explanation we have ever seen for why Republicans lose so many winnable elections.

This is a center-right country of largely conservatives Americans. But, the GOP is comprised, organizationally, mainly of young, ambitious, cutthroat, “Romney Guys” who don’t see the big picture of what’s best for conservatism, only what will help them advance to the next level and make more money so they can buy more blue blazers, Brooks Brothers ties, and khaki pants. Lee Roupas clearly had a choice: to either stand up to Beth Christie and refuse to hire her “Prophet”, because the baggage he carried with his behavior was potentially damaging to the GOP…or to cave into her demands because he wanted to keep advancing his career and he knew that upsetting a large, cougarized donor was not the way for him to get ahead.

Everyone who ordered Roupas to give Beth Christie everything she wanted should be fired along with him.

The Republican Party in Illinois needs to clean house, de-cougarize, and spray for Roupas.

Small dollar donor conservatives need to band together and demand the RNC investigate this Cook County mess, and determine why, exactly, one wealthy woman was allowed to cause so much chaos by protecting one bad apple with her vast fortune.

What’s been happening here in Cook County is a chance for conservatives coast to coast to grasp what’s wrong with the Republican Party at the city, county, and state levels…so that we can use the next two years to weed out the Lee Roupases and mitigate the influence of the Beth Christies so that the likes of “The Prophet” don’t keep Republicans from beating Obama and taking back Washington in 2012.

Too much is at stake to allow the GOP to keep making the same mistakes, every day, in the same spectacular fashion, while expecting different results.

Please help spread word on what’s happening here in Chicago, and please use any contacts you have with the RNC to make sure truthtellers like Eloise Gerson are assisted in every way possible in exposing messes like this…not punished for daring to speak the truth.

FORCE THE GOP TO LEARN FROM ITS MISTAKES — AND THEN STOP MAKING THEM.

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