'No one voted for' him: Florida Republican Party ousts chairman after rape allegation

Florida’s Republican Party on Monday voted in an emergency meeting to remove chairman Christian Ziegler from his position following allegations of sexual assault, NBC News reports.

“No one voted for Christian Ziegler,” Florida Senate Republican Blaise Ingoglia told CNN.

Ziegler is currently under investigation by the Sarasota Police Department after a woman last year accused the former chairman of rape.

Politico reports:

Ziegler has maintained that the sexual encounter he had with the woman who leveled the rape accusations against him was consensual. He and his wife, Moms for Liberty cofounder and Sarasota County school board member Bridget Ziegler, also acknowledged to police that they had been in a three-way sexual encounter a year earlier with the alleged victim, per a search warrant affidavit.

Charges have not been filed in the case. NBC News reports “Ziegler was not in attendance for the vote.”

An anonymous source told NBC News the party was forced to oust Ziegler after he “did not do the right thing and resign.”

“I believe it was almost unanimous vote to remove Christian Ziegler, which I believe is the absolute right thing to do,” the source said. “And I want to reiterate that we are spending a lot of time and energy on this, on this meeting instead of focusing on the things we need to focus on, and that’s simply because Christian Ziegler did not do the right thing and resign.”