This scandal lacks nothing. A conservative Republican politician accused of rape in Florida, alleged recordings of threesomes circulating, lesbian relations of an ultra-conservative involved in campaigns against the LGBT community and two million dollars on the table in exchange for a resignation that even the all-powerful governor of Florida is asking , Ron DeSantis.
The protagonists of this rugged equation are Bridget and Christian Ziegler, a power couple, as they define in the United States a fusion with such power of influence in the political spheres, who from being on the crest of the wave is fully immersed in the mission. to safeguard its battered reputation. He was elected in early 2023 to chair the Republican Party in Florida and she is the co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative group in favor of censoring books and against discussing topics such as homosexuality and racial diversity in class.
They moved like fish in water in an increasingly Republican state until in November Ziegler was accused of rape by a woman whom the couple had invited to have a threesome. The idea was to carry it out on October 2, but the woman decided to cancel at the last minute, sending a text message in which she acknowledged that her main interest was her and not him. The president of the Republicans did not seem to accept the rejection at all well because, according to the lawsuit, the woman found him in her apartment, where he abused her.
Ziegler has actively and passively denied it, ensuring that the relationship was consensual. However, Instagram messages to which detectives in charge of the case had access show that the politician asked on several occasions what he could do for his alleged victim. “You caused it. You can’t help me,” she replied. She insisted on seeing her and talking about her because they had been friends of hers for more than 20 years, but the complainant refused, “terrified” after her rape.
Bridget Ziegler, a member of the Sarasota County school board, has had to defend herself against accusations of hypocrisy over these consensual threesomes with women despite having vehemently supported the Don’t Say Gay law that raised so much dust and that prevents teachers from talk about sexual or gender orientation in classrooms with children up to nine years old in Florida. Her group “Mothers for Freedom” considers a kiss between two girls to be a “lewd and traumatic” act. One of them even proposed that homosexual students be separated from the rest, including young people with autism and Down syndrome.
Sarasota school board members have called for her resignation but she has refused despite a vote by her peers, a dismissal that only Governor DeSantis could execute. Her husband, for her part, is in a similar situation, pressured by members of his party and by DeSantis himself to abandon the presidency in the southern state. For now, he has been suspended from employment and salary.
There are those who believe that Ziegler is looking for a way out in exchange for a compensation of two million dollars, a strategy that his training colleagues consider unviable. “The first thing I did was laugh when I heard it, and so did the person who told me what was being discussed or asked. There will never be a buyout,” Michael Thompson, leader of the Lee County Republican Executive Committee, told The Washington Post.
Despite having praised Ziegler’s work at a rally on November 4 and posing together for photographers, President Donald Trump has remained silent in recent weeks while DeSantis, his main political rival in the primaries, condemned the Ziegler actions. His resignation and replacement could be a key issue for next year’s presidential elections.