As we predicted on June 22^nd, Joel Searby has scrubbed his internet profile. His Twitter account has been deleted, and his personal website has been reset to “Private”. This “Husband, Father, Friend. Renewer, Reformer, Dreamer,” is in some seriously deep doo-doo.

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As we noted three years ago, The Lincoln Project, an organization of anti-Trump “Republicans” which had been doing everything they could to hamper our 45^th President, was then distancing itself from and denying any real knowledge about co-founder John Weaver. Many publicly mused about how co-founders George Conway, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen, Jennifer Horn and Rick Wilson could not have known about Mr Weaver’s activities. Twenty-one young men, including one who claims that things began when he was just 14, have accused Mr Weaver of sending unwanted sexually provocative messages, sometimes including solicitations for sex, often in exchange for the promise of career help, to which Mr Weaver admitted once caught.

And yes, of course Mr Weaver was married to a woman at the time. Bad causes attract bad people.

My good friend Robert Stacy McCain has covered, with some amusement, the fact that yet another of the #NeverTrump “Republicans” has been caught up in scandal.

Another #NeverTrump Embarrassment: ‘Lewd and Lascivious Behavior’

by Robert Stacy McCain | Friday, June 21, 2024

You may have forgotten — or possibly never noticed — the “independent” presidential candidacy of Evan McMullin in 2016. For a while, McMullin was the darling of the #NeverTrump types (Kristol, David French, et al.), who tried to hype him up as a viable candidate. The campaign (with former GOP operative Mindy Finn as McMullin’s VP running mate) was a sad joke, which managed to get barely 730,00 votes (less than one-half of one percent of the total) and failed to achieve its only real goal, i.e., to take votes away from Donald Trump and thereby elect Hillary Clinton.

Did I mention — because it seems relevant — that the McMullin campaign cheated its employees and vendors to the tune of $669,330.95?

The “chief strategist” of that debacle was Joel Searby who, going from one grift to another, in 2022 became political director of the short-lived “Renew America Movement,” which subsequently merged into the Forward Party (founded by 2020 Democratic primary candidate Andrew Yang), but Searby’s Forward Party grift didn’t last long, and by August 2023, he had moved onto his next grift: “Newberry Education First,” which is (or at least was) an effort to convert three public schools in Alachua County, Florida, into charter schools.

Meanwhile, however, Searby kept busy in other ways:

An Alachua County judge ordered a Newberry Education First board member to be held without bond at a first appearance hearing Friday morning.

Joel Searby, 43, was booked into the Alachua County Jail on Thursday on charges of lewd and lascivious behavior, communication to lure a minor, communication to travel to meet a minor, and using a communication device to commit a felony. According to the arrest report, he solicited sex from an underage boy on Snapchat.

Searby was one of the people leading the charge to attempt to convert Newberry public schools into charter schools.

The arrest report from the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office transcribes a conversation that started on Wednesday between Searby and the victim on the messaging app Snapchat. In the message chain, Searby asked the 15-year-old if he has ever had a crush on an older man and then describes a sexual encounter he had as a teen with an adult man.

Searby sent the boy multiple photos of himself with his face obscured, including a photo of his hand in his pants. He then invited the boy to visit his home the next morning, secretly.

He suggested the victim should sneak out and go to Searby’s guest house. He would send the boy a text asking him to go over to help with yard work as an excuse for his parents.

“Evidence is pretty damning, and it’s scary for me as a parent,” shared parent Brandy Oldman.

On Thursday morning, law enforcement took over the boy’s account and continued the conversation with Searby. He confirmed the meet-up for “yard work” and a detective pretending to be the victim asked if they would be “jerking off” or something more.

You can read the rest at Mr McCain’s original. I chose to look at it from another angle. The left have been telling us, all along, that pedophilia has nothing to do with homosexuality, but opportunity, but here we go again, the predator of the underaged specifying a 15-year-old boy, not just a 15-year-old.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” — George Orwell, 1984

Technically, this isn’t pedophilia, which refers to sexual desire toward pre-pubescent children. While there’s a technical term, ephebophilia, for those who prefer sex partners in the 15-to-17-year age range, the real term is chickenhawk.

His Twitter profile tells us that he is a husband and father, so he’s at least claiming to be sexually normal, yet he’s (allegedly) taking serious risks to f(ornicate) a 15-year-old boy.

In the About Me page on his website, he tells us:

I am a disciple of Jesus, a husband, a father and a friend before anything else in life.

My wife Jen is the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. She is strong, faithful, and brutally honest. She is comfortable in her own skin. I love that about her.

My kids, Evan and Lydia, are also amazing. They are silly and beautiful and curious about life. They challenge me to think and they give me hope and a purpose for fighting for the future.

Together we live in Archer, Florida. I grew up in Normal, Illinois and attended University High School. Jen and I met and graduated from Lincoln Christian University and spent 6 months of our first year of marriage living in Santiago, Chile serving a church plant and working with young mothers, kids, drug addicts and others in a rough part of the city. It was an amazing experience and we love Chile and her people. Both our kids were born here in Gainesville and we love it here. Our church home, Greenhouse Church, has been very influential in our lives helping us to heal from past hurts, find purpose and build a community of friends and fellow Christ-followers who are trying together to really live out what we believe.

There’s a nice photo of a smiling Mr and Mrs Searby accompanying it. I suspect that Mrs Searby isn’t smiling right now.

There isn’t much on his website, and his activity on Twitter has been sparse as well, but there was a gem he posted: Political Husbands, Love Your Wives:

Recently, as Representative Jason Chaffetz was under fire and announced that he would not seek re-election he posted a flurry of “I love my wife” communications. I don’t know why, nor am I insinuating anything. But I’ve been troubled by it ever since. I’m not troubled by his love for his wife. I celebrate and encourage that. What troubled me is that this is a pattern I’ve seen play out so many times. Elected married men find themselves under pressure, often because of infidelity, but not always, and they all of a sudden “find religion” as it relates to their marriage.

This is not a phenomenon afflicting only elected officials, of course. All of us married men have probably had some moment (or many if you’re me) in our marriage where, because we’d screwed up in some way, we engage in a flurry of “I love my wife” activity. And of course sometimes that’s exactly what we need to do – we need to regain trust, shower her with love or just plain pay our debts.

Instead of beat up on Chaffetz (plenty have done that already) I thought I’d turn this on its head. I believe deeply that if we are going to turn this country around one of the things we need is elected leaders of character, integrity and kindness. Role models for our children. Men and women who are committed to the simple acts of goodness and kindness that seem to get shouted out of our political discourse. And just because there is so much shouting, I’ll disclaim here and now that I’m not saying women shouldn’t celebrate their husbands, singleness isn’t affirmed and valued or that I’m somehow elbowing out people who don’t share my views about marriage.

Here’s the reality: the majority of our elected leaders are white men  – many of them married – and I think it would do us all a lot of good to pause for a moment, for no reason other than its the right thing to do, and call them to honor their wives as those of us who are married do the same.

Elected married men – love your wives well today. That’s my challenge, should you accept it. Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike, all over this country from the White House to the Town Hall – I challenge you to this simple act of goodness and respect that maybe, just maybe will bring a bit of good to this toxic time. Share it, retweet it, hashtag it, but most importantly, do it.

Normally, I wouldn’t have quoted the whole thing, but let’s face it: following his arrest, it is highly likely that his online footprint will be scrubbed, and the hypocrisy of all of this is just blatant.

Who knows? It is at least possible that the 15-year-old boy Mr Searby allegedly tried to ‘meet’ is the first time he’s ever attempted it, but that seems unlikely. It is at least possible that this whole thing was made up by his enemies, or it’s a case of mistaken identity to have arrested Mr Searby, but that also seems improbable.