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SALT LAKE CITY — Embattled Operation Underground Railroad founder Tim Ballard will speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference next month in Washington despite multiple sexual assault allegations, the organization announced over the weekend.
CPAC — which bills itself as the "largest and most influential gathering of conservatives" — announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Ballard is a confirmed speaker for its upcoming conference beginning Feb. 21.
Confirmed Speaker: @TimBallard for CPAC in DC 2024
— CPAC (@CPAC) January 26, 2024
Join us February 21 - 24 for CPAC in DC!
Sign-up at https://t.co/HBJXtWiPPdpic.twitter.com/28IgnYBcI3
Ballard, an anti-trafficking activist, left Operation Underground Railroad last summer and has been the subject of intense media scrutiny following a series of allegations that he manipulated and sexually assaulted multiple women under the guise of fooling child traffickers on rescue missions.
Ballard has denied those allegations and in December filed a response to one of the lawsuits against him claiming one of the plaintiffs illegally accessed information that was used in the lawsuit.
At least two conservative former allies of Ballard have since distanced themselves from the activist who is the inspiration for the hit film "Sound of Freedom."
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes has been a friend of Ballard and a supporter of Operation Underground Railroad for years and even accompanied Ballard on a rescue mission in Colombia. When Ballard was mulling a campaign for Sen. Mitt Romney's Senate seat last fall, Reyes was widely expected to endorse him over other Republican challengers.
Following the allegations against Ballard, Reyes instead announced he would not endorse anyone in the race. In his December announcement that he would not seek reelection again in 2024, Reyes said he had spoken with Ballard's accusers in person and said he believes them and is "heartbroken for what they have endured and the trauma they will face their entire lives."
The attorney general said his office would open a criminal investigation into the allegations against Ballard before he leaves office early next year.
Reyes spoke at CPAC in early 2022.
Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck was another longtime friend of Ballard, but said in October that Ballard's "story started to fall apart" and that he "felt completely duped" and called a report of the allegations "disturbing."
CPAC has been embroiled in controversy of its own recently stemming from allegations that Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union — which hosts the annual conference — fondled a Republican staffer on Herschel Walker's U.S. Senate campaign in October 2022. A spokesman for Schlapp called additional allegations of sexual misconduct in 2017 and early 2022 "demonstrably false."
CPAC is also seen as an early launching pad for former President Donald Trump, who spoke at the conference in 2011. The former president and frontrunner for the GOP nomination also headlined the conference last year, delivering a nearly two-hour keynote address describing his campaign as the "final battle" and saying "if they win, we no longer have a country."
Trump has not always been popular at CPAC. Presidential straw polls taken annually at the conference favored Romney, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz between 2007 and 2016, and the conference's embrace of his brand of populism is emblematic of the way the GOP as a whole has shifted in the years since Trump won the party's nomination in 2016.
Allegations aside, Ballard appears to be in line with the conference's political leanings. Trump hosted a screening of "Sound of Freedom" at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club and was a guest on Ballard's podcast last summer.
Ballard has regularly advocated for strong border enforcement to curb human trafficking and served on an anti-trafficking White House advisory council during Trump's administration.
CPAC's lineup includes several prominent Trump supporters, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-New York, the chair of the House Republican Conference, U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, former Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Richard Grenell, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The conference runs Feb. 21-24.
