As Florida GOP chairman Christian Ziegler faces calls to resign amid a rape investigation, members of his party are trying to call an emergency meeting to address the scandal.
Evan Power, the Republican Party of Florida’s vice chair, sent a Monday night email to colleagues announcing Ziegler had refused to call a meeting himself.
“It is with a heavy heart I write this email to you,” Power wrote. “Over the last few days, we have seen the news and have received calls from the press about the situation with our Chairman. Many of you have called me, and I have tried to talk to as many of you as possible.”
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He added, “In an act of respect for the Chairman, this evening, I phoned him to request he call an executive board meeting; he declined and said the matters could be taken up in February.”
“It is the opinion of the many members that is not an acceptable timetable,” Powers continued.
Last week, the nonprofit Florida Center for Government Accountability revealed that Ziegler—husband of Moms for Liberty (M4L) co-founder Bridget Ziegler—was accused of sexually assaulting a woman who’d previously had a threesome with him and his wife.
The news was a bombshell in the Sarasota community, where the Zieglers have fanned the flames of anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry, backed Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and led the charge to ban “pornographic” books in schools. Bridget Ziegler, as head of the Sarasota County School Board, refused to shut down a meeting’s public comment period when a woman began hurling homophobic remarks at a gay board member.
Two high-profile Ziegler allies—DeSantis and U.S. Senator Rick Scott—have called on Christian Ziegler to step down. Despite facing pressure within his own party, Ziegler has refused to call it quits, telling colleagues in an email over the weekend: “We have a country to save and I am not going to let false allegations of a crime put that mission on the bench as I wait for this process to wrap up.”
On Tuesday, even M4L co-founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice seemed to distance themselves from the Zieglers, saying they were “shaken” to learn of the “serious, criminal allegations” against Christian and pointing out that Bridget resigned from M4L three years ago.
Ziegler has not been charged with any crime and denies the accusations.
Still, a Sarasota detective’s search warrant affidavit for Ziegler’s email account revealed a disturbing set of accusations against him—and an admission from Bridget Ziegler that she’d had a sexual encounter with the alleged victim and her husband a year ago.
The victim, a friend of Christian Ziegler’s for 20 years, told police that he sexually assaulted her on Oct. 2. According to the affidavit, the Zieglers and the victim planned to have a sexual encounter that day but when the victim learned Bridget couldn’t make it, she canceled. “Sorry I was mostly in for her,” the victim texted Christian.
The accuser says that Christian Ziegler showed up to her apartment anyway and raped her at her apartment without using a condom. “I’m leaving the same way I came in,” he allegedly told her. Before the alleged assault, the victim told police, she had been drinking all day and could not consent to the encounter.
Weeks later, Christian Ziegler messaged the victim again in communications that were recorded with detectives. “I’m not okay with what happened the other day between us,” the victim said, according to the affidavit.
“Oh. That’s not good. You’re my friend. Known ya for like twenty years now. Lol,” Ziegler replied.
Later, the victim told him she refused to meet with him. “Hell no not after what you did to me. Do you not understand I am terrified of you?”
In one of their phone calls, Ziegler asked if the victim needed financial help and whether she was recording him and trying to get him to say something.
When detectives interviewed Ziegler with his attorney present, the GOP chair claimed the encounter was consensual with the victim and that he recorded video of the incident. “Christian said he initially deleted the video, but since the allegation, he uploaded the video to his Google Drive,” the affidavit says. “Which we have not been able to locate upon a digital extraction.”
On Tuesday, state Democrats and LGBTQ advocates held a press conference calling for both Bridget and Christian Ziegler to resign from their public positions—and issue an apology to LGBTQ families.
Bridget Ziegler has been on Sarasota’s school board since 2014, and this year DeSantis appointed her to the five-member panel overseeing Walt Disney World’s special district—a board he created to punish the company for its opposition to his “Don’t Say Gay” law.
“For years, the Zieglers have promoted a strain of purity politics not even they can live up to,” said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried. “Now don’t get me wrong: What Bridget and Christian Ziegler do in their bedroom is their personal business. But Christian has been accused of a serious crime. And Bridget has spent her days building a national movement to demonize the LGBTQ+ community. So on behalf of Florida Democrats, we have one message for Christian Ziegler: Resign.”
Democratic state Rep. Fentrice Driskell said her heart went out to the victim and all women watching the story and its “ugly” details unfold.
“As more and more damning details come out, it is becoming impossible to understand why he’s still the chair of the Republican Party of Florida,” Driskell said, adding, “Every day Christian Ziegler stays as chair sends a chilling message to the women of Florida about how the Republican Party views sexual assault.”
Jordan Letschert, a gay dad and former Florida police officer, said his family was forced to move to Denver “because of people like Christian and Bridget Ziegler,” who he says “completely changed the dynamics of what we know Sarasota and Florida to have always been, which was an accepting, inclusive state until the past seven years.”
“The hypocrisy has already been admitted by both Christian and Bridget,” Letschert added. “They both have admitted to having homosexual acts on Bridget’s side with another woman in a threesome, and yet they will post things on their social media to make Proud Boys show up at events where kids are at, who are simply trying to form gay-straight alliances.”
Letschert said that despite the Zieglers’ activities in Sarasota, the city and LGBTQ community “would stand and help Bridget Ziegler if she identifies as bisexual” instead of attacking her.
Carlos Guillermo Smith, a former state lawmaker who identifies as LGBTQ, called on the Zieglers to “apologize to the countless LGBTQ families hurt by their extreme agenda.”
“The Zieglers,” he said, “stepped on the backs of the LGBTQ community, disparaged us and hurt our families in their quest for political power.”
Meanwhile, Brevard School Board member Jennifer Jenkins claimed that in her role, she’s faced harassment from members of M4L and the Florida Republican Party, who she accused of “spreading allegations of an affair through an obsessive website, critiquing the way that I dress, and a state representative calling me a whore—all under the guise of protecting from predators while intentionally avoiding their very own mirrors.”
“And when it comes to the Zieglers, not a damn word from Moms for Liberty except standing with them in solidarity—not once but twice,” Jenkins said. “if the incidents that took place were written in a chapter book, Moms or Liberty would be rallying to ban them, condemning the author and the educators who curated it.”
After news of the Ziegler scandal broke, M4L’s national Twitter account called the accusations “Yet another attempt today to ruin the reputation of a strong woman fighting for America.”
In the since-deleted post, M4L appeared to back up the Zieglers’ claims that the rape allegations were politically motivated attacks on them. “#StrongWomen scare those that seek to destroy our country. We stand with @BridgetAZiegler & every other badass woman fighting for kids & America,” the right-wing group wrote.
Descovich and Justice, who co-founded M4L with Bridget Ziegler, released a new statement on Tuesday. “We have been truly shaken to read of the serious, criminal allegations against Christian Ziegler,” they said. “We believe any allegation of sexual assault should be taken seriously and fully investigated.”
“Bridget Ziegler resigned from her role as co-founder with Moms for Liberty within a month of our launch in January of 2021, nearly three years ago,” they continued. “She has remained an avid warrior for parental rights across the country.”
“To our opponents who have spewed hateful vitriol over the last several days: We reject your attacks. We will continue to empower ALL parents to build relationships that ensure the survival of our nation and a thriving education system. We are laser-focused on fundamental parental rights, and that mission is and always will be bigger than any one person.”
Still, the accusations could be causing a rift among M4L ranks. One Pennsylvania chapter announced it’s breaking off from the national organization in wake of Christian Ziegler’s rape accusations.
“It’s hard to advocate for parental rights when the co-founder is caught up in the scandal,” Northumberland County chapter chair Clarissa Paige told The News-Item, a newspaper in Shamokin. “Our values are not aligning with the national organization.”
Last month, it was also revealed that a M4L chapter leader in Philadelphia was a registered sex offender convicted of abusing a 14-year-old boy, and that the organization booted two of its Kentucky chapter chairs after they posed with members of the far-right group the Proud Boys, which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is known for regularly disseminating white nationalist ideas.
“I believe that Moms for Liberty took advantage of a situation in which people were seeking somewhere to feel valued, to feel effective, to feel heard,” Jenkins said. “And they took advantage of those people, and they're finally realizing that they have been manipulated.”
