As chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), kept a secret spreadsheet of people he did not want to attend CPAC events. He called it a “Z List,” and the directive was “DO NOT INVITE” anyone on the list.
The list contains some shocking names, like Barron and Tiffany Trump. Eric Trump was on the list, along with members of Congress affiliated with America First and some of CPAC’s board of directors.
Former Congressman Bob Beauprez, Schlapp’s treasurer, resigned last week after allegations of “cancer” within the American Conservative Union (ACU), the parent organization of CPAC, which Schlapp also directs. There have been dozens of resignations in the past several months.
Also on the list are Kayleigh McEnany, General Flynn, Brantly Gable, Kellyanne Conway, and around 50 other Members of Congress.
It’s noteworthy that Schlapp’s preference is erratic since members of the “Z-list” have spoken at successive CPACs despite their initial exclusion. Schlapp has long been suspected of using CPAC and the ACU as his playground, but the discovered list will lend validity to this theory.
Ned Ryun, a former member of the CPAC board, has called it “bizarre” that the ACU head would shun conservatives and not welcome them to a conservative conference.
Ryun said this is about him isolating members of his board and the legislative branch he was elected to serve in, and it reeks of cronyism and a pay-to-play mindset, on top of being ludicrous and highly personal and petulant.
In 2014, when he took over CPAC and the ACU, Schlapp said that the goal was not to kick people out who come from different perspectives. At the time, he noted that the word “union ” in ACU suggests that it serves as a unifying force.
He said he wanted to get it there.
That intention appears to have shifted in the past decade and a half. The Schlapps pondered abandoning their support for Donald Trump in 2016 due to his immigration views, as detailed in the new book The Big Break.
