Did the Son of the NRA-Connected Private Spy Lose His Job Because of Mom?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Is Sean McFate the first casualty of Gun-gate?

Sean McFate is the son of Mary Lou Sapone (a.k.a. Mary McFate), the NRA-connected private spy who infiltrated the gun control movement for about 15 years. Her tale was first disclosed by Mother Jones last week. That article noted that Sean, a Brown- and Harvard-educated paratrooper, and his wife, Montgomery McFate, a controversial Pentagon adviser, had once both worked for Mary Lou Sapone’s business, which specialized, according to an old version of Montgomery’s resume, in “domestic and internal opposition research” and “special investigations.” Sean and Montgomery McFate might also have been involved in Mary Lou Sapone’s penetration of the gun control community.

More recently, Sean McFate was program director of the national security initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank boasting an advisory board composed of four former Senate majority leaders: Howard Baker, Bob Dole, George Mitchell, and Tom Daschle. That is, he was until the appearance of the Mother Jones story on his mother.

As that story was being posted last week, McFate was listed on BPC’s staff list on its website. Days later, his name was gone.

Asked about McFate’s fate, the BPC issued this statement:

Prior to the publication of the recent Mother Jones article, Sean McFate resigned from the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) to pursue a different professional project. The BPC was unaware of any allegations regarding the activities of Sean’s family members and never had any reason to believe that Sean was involved in any questionable behavior.

The timing of the Mother Jones article was purely coincidental, and was in no way related to Sean’s resignation. We wish him well as he pursues his professional interests.

A coincidence? Perhaps. But McFate, as noted above, was on the staff list until after the story hit. Moreover, after Mother Jones had contacted McFate for the story but before the article was posted, his title on the BPC website changed. Twice. He went from being listed as a program director to being described as a consultant to again being listed as a program director–all within a few days. Why the back and forth? (McFate refused to talk to Mother Jones about his mother or his work with her.)

It could be that Sean McFate’s departure from the BPC was no more than a case of odd timing. But would the BPC–which works to develop “solutions that can attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress” and which happens to be located one floor below the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, the nation’s most prominent gun control organization (which McFate tried to penetrate)–want on its staff a fellow linked to an undercover operation that targeted a neighbor? And the work of Mary Lou Sapone was hardly in the spirit of bipartisanship. It’s not surprising that Sean McFate picked this moment to move on.

Meanwhile, the NRA has yet to respond to the exposure of Mary Lou Sapone’s snooping. Nor has she. After the story came out, Mary Lou Sapone skedaddled to Belize and has not replied to requests from various news organizations.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate