Golden Parachute

Under pall of suspicion, resigned LP Chair McArdle lands in Trump administration

On January 24^th, 2025, Angela McArdle resigned as Chair of the Libertarian Party. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that she was taking a job in the Trump administration. In her wake, she left allegations of ethical violations but also countervailing accolades. Whether McArdle has done the party more good than harm may depend on who is asked. Specifically, it depends on what goals a given observer desires for the party, though such judgments only matter if all the facts are in.

Examining the facts, late in May 2022, the national Libertarian Party (LP) convention in Reno, Nevada, elected McArdle for a term of two years. In early August 2023, McArdle allegedly approved a no-bid contract for a professional fundraiser with no documented expertise in that field, and at a rate of compensation above industry standards. Only afterwards did it surface that the contractor was her cohabitating boyfriend and her son’s father, Austin Padgett (Complaint in derivative suit by Beth Vest, ¶29-33). By corporate law and the Libertarian National Committee’s own Policy Manual, LNC members such as the Chair are supposed to disclose any potential conflicts of interest prior to finalizing the transaction. By doing so, disinterested board members can ensure that the LP is operated with its best interests in mind. Unfortunately, McArdle’s self-dealing only worsened from there.

Around November 2023, McArdle was purportedly back-channelling with the Republican Party’s presidential heir-apparent, former U.S. president Donald Trump, about appearing at the next LP national convention. Seemingly she even dispatched her beau Padgett to Mar-a-Lago to implore Trump’s attendance, as Padgett himself boasts on Substack about his meeting with Trump. Thus, the LP’s Chair was courting another party’s candidate who – as a household name and long-standing media personality – was guaranteed to upstage any and all native Libertarian contenders for the presidential nomination at the next convention in May 2024.

This collusion was never divulged to prospective delegates for 2024’s LP national convention in Washington, DC. Instead we were fed the performative fiction that the LNC had extended an open invitation to both presumptive legacy party candidates, and that Trump had accepted it. During Trump’s speech at the convention, he promised two things: that he would pardon the Silk Road website’s founder Ross Ulbricht, who was unjustly languishing in prison for ten years at that point, and that he would appoint “a Libertarian” to his cabinet. Such promises were encouraging to hear from a former president (especially if you disregarded the fact that Trump could have done both during his first term). Every native candidate for the LP nomination had made the same two promises.

At May 2024’s convention in Washington, DC, McArdle was re-elected Chair, and the delegation nominated Chase Oliver as the LP’s standard bearer in the General Election. On June 3^rd, 2024, McArdle repaid the delegates’ sacrifice of time and treasure by publishing a video on X which mocked Oliver’s candidacy and characterized it as futile other than to siphon progressivist votes and improve Trump’s odds. No one would have faulted McArdle for not preferring Oliver. He won on the seventh ballot, so he was not everyone’s first choice, but the Chair is expected not to undermine the party’s nominee. Whereas McArdle had doggedly pursued state affiliates for violating affiliation terms and trademarks (the affiliates in New Mexico, Virginia and Michigan spring to mind), she was content to watch affiliates in redder states (Montana, New Hampshire and Idaho) flout such terms by refusing to ratify Oliver’s nomination on grounds of their personal dislike for him, and all because it advanced McArdle’s clandestine pact with another party’s candidate.

On July 24^th, 2024, Rescue the West, Inc. was incorporated in Washington, DC, officially listing McArdle as its contact person. On October 11th, 2024, Libertarian Unity PAC (political action committee) was established, listing McArdle as its Texas-based custodian of records for the Federal Election Commission’s purposes. Through these entities, fundraising was supposed to be shared between the LP and PACs supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (who by August 23^rd, 2024, had folded into Trump’s presidential campaign). Official LP resources such as its logo and e-mail list were utilized to notify LP members of events organized by or through McArdle’s incorporated entities (amicus curiae brief by Jake Porter to LNC Judicial Committee, pp. 12-15). One such event was the vaunted “Rescue the Republic” rally of September 29^th, 2024, which promoted itself using Trump’s image and excluded LP presidential nominee Chase Oliver from being a featured speaker. To present knowledge, no formal audit has been conducted to determine how much revenue (if anything) has been remitted to the LP’s treasury from the joint fundraising (Complaint in derivative suit by Caryn Ann Harlos, ¶26-31). What we do know is that between August 2023 and November 2024, the LP remitted to McArdle’s household around $78,000.

What to some is the most important fact in this scenario, in the General Election of November 2024, Donald Trump won the presidency. Very shortly after the inauguration in January 2025, Trump fulfilled his promise to pardon Ross Ulbricht. Additionally, he fulfilled his promise to appoint a Libertarian to his cabinet in the person of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. -- a dues-paying LP member – as Secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

To these facts, the following stipulations can be added. It is true that statistically it was more probable in November 2023 that a legacy party candidate such as former president Trump had a higher chance of victory in the General Election over whomever the LP would nominate at 2024’s convention. It is true that Trump’s attendance at said convention attracted mainstream media which otherwise would have ignored the LP. It is true that Ross Ulbricht’s presidential pardon and a Libertarian’s appointment to the Cabinet are favorable outcomes. We can even stipulate that Trump’s establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk has been favorable in increasing transparency and accountability in the U.S. government, objectives which all Libertarians desire.

It is also true that any favorable outcome achieved by fraud becomes unfavorable thereby.

The pledge which every LP member takes upon joining is, “I hereby certify that I oppose the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.” Force is explicitly rejected because it subverts the victim’s free will. Fraud achieves the same result by misrepresenting or omitting facts as they exist, such that the victim is induced to actions which he would not otherwise take.

Had McArdle informed LP delegates that she would conspire with a rival party’s candidate, divert LNC disbursements into her own household, then parachute into that candidate’s administration six months into a second two-year-term, those delegates would never have elected her.

We can and do applaud what concessions Trump has made to Libertarians. We also demand candor and loyalty from those elected to represent this party.

THE AFTERMATH

Unsatisfied just to get out of Dodge and ride off into the sunset, McArdle recommended her caucus founder Michael Heise as her successor when the LNC held an internal election for Chair on February 2^nd, 2025. This is the same person who hand-picked Dr. Michael Rectenwald as a contender for the LP’s presidential nomination in 2024, only later to urge his following to vote Republican after Rectenwald lost the nomination. This is the person who during the Q&A asserted that he has backers who would pay him a salary to serve as LP Chair, but expressed reluctance to reveal who they were, leaving us to presume the worst (video at time stamp 2:18:40 - 2:20:44). This is the mentality which McArdle wanted to chair the LP following her resignation, and thankfully it was defeated… this time around.

Evaluation of McArdle’s chairmanship may depend on the observer’s overall goals for the LP, but not all goals are created equal. Some in our midst use the party as a fair-weather option for leverage to exact concessions from the legacy parties. Some see no wrong in running an apparently serious campaign, only to pull a Marc Victor and belly-up to a legacy party for an approving scratch behind the ears. Some do not realize that we will always be the underdog as long as we so eagerly fall into the role.

There is a heuristic irony to McArdle’s preference for Donald Trump. Trump professes a unique form of nationalism. Nationalism by definition is when a country advocates its own interests above those of other counties. It makes sense that the USA uphold its own interests since no other country has a clearer mandate to do so. Similarly, the officer at the helm of our party should understand that no one else has a greater stake in its success.

Nor are all the facts in. McArdle bailed just before the LNC could establish a subcommittee to investigate the allegations against her. As things now stand, there are probably a hundred demands on the LNC’s attention and resources, such that there is no wherewithal to investigate the former Chair. Naturally, questions linger about what was known, when and by whom. These and other questions may need to be answered if the LP is to prevent future betrayals by those entrusted with its directorship.

To this end, it has been suggested that a fund be established so that donations can be earmarked for an investigation into the allegations. Presuming that a disinterested LNC board or an independent commission is tasked with oversight of this matter, the infusion of crowdfunding would allow the LNC to investigate without distracting from its current allocations. There would even be some poetic justice if members wronged by McArdle were to sleuth the truth about her malfeasance’s extent!