Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly offered more details about the turmoil within her organization, Eagle Forum, in an interview with far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones yesterday, claiming that the group of dissidents who she says are trying to oust her from her position in the group are also targeting her son and disclosing that she once considered former Rep. Michele Bachmann to be a potential successor before deciding against it.
Schlafly’s handpicked successor, Ed Martin, was recently voted out by a group of Eagle Forum board members who suggested that he was mismanaging the organization and manipulating the 91-year-old Schlafly into making unwise decisions, such as her very public endorsement of Donald Trump.
The group voted to install Schlafly’s daughter, Anne Cori, as the organization’s new executive director, and insists that removing Martin, not Schlafly, is their only objective.
Schlafly, however, believes that the board vote was invalid and actually directed at ousting her, claiming that the dissidents, including her daughter, are targeting her because she didn’t join them in supporting Ted Cruz.
She gave more information to Jones yesterday, alleging that Cori was “at one time” in line to succeed her at Eagle Forum but that she decided against naming her daughter to lead the group, a move which may have helped to motivate Cori to launch the supposed coup.
Bachmann, Schlafly revealed, was also floated as a potential successor, but the former Minnesota congresswoman was taken out of the running due to concerns about her experience and the breadth of her knowledge.
“A lot of our people wanted us to pick Michele Bachmann, and she certainly has a lot of talent, a very fine speaker, and so forth,” she said, “but she knew nothing about running an organization and she knew nothing about politics outside of her own domain.”
Schlafly says her daughter “lined up with some of the people who thought they could get good jobs at Eagle Forum if they got rid of me” and that Cori “is trying to tell me that she’s just doing this for my benefit, but I don’t need somebody to do something for my benefit, I’ve gotten along quite well all these years.”
Schlafly said that the turmoil started when the Eagle Forum leaders who endorsed Cruz “did it in a way that made it look like it was Eagle Forum doing it” and leaked membership lists to the Cruz campaign. She alleged that Cori and others are now also trying to remove her sons, John and Andy, from their posts in the organization.
“The only thing they’ve done is divide my family,” she said. “My daughter is with the group that is leading the assault on my leadership and they want to get rid of my son, so extremely valuable in my organization, one of them is both a lawyer and an accountant and he’s very good with the money, he always errs on the safe side of things ... Then we’ve got another son they want to get rid of and he’s the one who has written a lot of these amicus briefs that we’ve filed with the Supreme Court in important cases.”
“I represent Eagle Forum and they tried to throw me out but, at any rate, I’m still here,” she said.
