Sexual assault lawsuit against CPAC’s Matt Schlapp is dropped

A man who once accused one of Washington DC’s highest-profile Republican operatives of sexually assaulting him has rescinded his allegations and says he regrets making them.

Matt Schlapp, head of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gathering, was accused by a campaign staffer for then-Senate candidate Herschel Walker of groping him during a car ride in 2022 as the staffer, Carlton Huffman, drove Mr Schlapp back to his hotel room. Mr Huffman further accused Mr Schlapp, who is married to a woman (former Trump White House staffer Mercedes Schlapp), of inviting him up to his hotel room.

The CPAC and American Conservative Union leader “placed his hand” on Mr Huffman’s leg and “began aggressively fondling [his] genital area in a sustained fashion”, lawyers for the plaintiff originally argued in their suit.

Now, in a statement first obtained by Politico through his onetime legal opponent, Mr Huffman bizarrely says the whole thing was a “misunderstanding”.

“The claims made in my lawsuits were the result of a complete misunderstanding, and I regret that the lawsuit caused pain to the Schlapp family,” Mr Huffman said, according to a statement obtained by Politico through the CPAC chief’s spokesperson. The news outlet confirmed the statement with Mr Huffman before publication.

“The Schlapps have advised that the statements made about me were the result of a misunderstanding, which was regrettable…Neither the Schlapps nor the ACU paid me anything to dismiss my claims against them.”

It’s a confusing end to a year-and-a-half-long ordeal which tarred the reputation of Mr Schlapp, who runs the annual conservative gathering in National Harbor through his leadsership of the American Conservative Union. Mr Schlapp had long denied the accusations, which were first made anonymously, but later detailed at length in a piece published in The Daily Beast.

Mr Schlapp “put his hands on me in a sustained and unsolicited and unwanted manner,” Mr Huffman said in a video obtained by The Daily Beast. The video was purported to have been recorded on the night of the incident itself in 2022.

“Matt Schlapp of the CPAC grabbed my junk and pummeled it at length, and I’m sitting there thinking what the hell is going on, that this person is literally doing this to me,” Mr Huffman would go on to say in the recording.

Earlier this year, Mr Schlapp refused to address the matter when asked about it by The Independent at his CPAC conference.

Mr Walker lost his Senate campaign after news reporting revealed that two women whom he had dated alleged that Mr Walker had paid for them to receive abortion services despite his public opposition to the legality of that practice.