State GOP leaders furious with Florida Republican who refuses to leave office: report

Any chance that Florida GOP chair Christian Ziegler may get a severance package as state Republican Party leaders push for his ouster due to his threesome sex scandal can be put to rest based upon comments from the people who control his fate.

Ziegler and his wife are both under fire after a woman they were conducting a 3-way affair with accused him of rape and now Republicans in the state are furious that he is reportedly seeking a buyout to step away from the embattled state party.

In interviews with the Daily Beast's Kate Briquelet, one GOP insider launched into a furious rant accusing Ziegler of keeping them all in the dark when he knew the accusations were about to become public.

“Let’s be honest,” they admitted. “He’s comfortable lying. Because he knew about these charges for a long time. And we went through whole meetings, summits, an event at Mar-a-Lago. No one knew. The party got blindsided when it [the rape scandal] broke in the paper.”

As for reports that he is asking for a substantial payoff to leave, they added, "The party members don’t want a buyout. They don’t even think it should be considered because of the reputational damage to the organization. They’re incensed by it.”

Lee County GOP chair Michael Thompson agreed, telling the Beast's Briquelet, "I have been told by several of my colleagues on the executive board that he has requested a buyout through other members trying to broker an agreement to make this go away, which has been met with zero interest."

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A member of the state executive board added, "He’s trying to wait it out. But I don’t think the committee is gonna give him that chance. The problem with being party chair is that you’re supposed to help get other people elected. But if you become the story, it kind of puts a black eye on a lot of the socially conservative messaging. It’s a career-ender politically, in my opinion. He’s always going to be the threesome guy.”

Another added, "Christian’s about to learn a very important lesson that a lot of people have learned. He’s not Donald Trump and he’s never gonna be Donald Trump.”

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