RNC: Young Eagles Still Grounded

Clockwise from top-left: Italo Zanzi, Ryan Morfin, John Roby Penn IV, and Penn with others at an event in Washington, D.C.
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It looks like J. Roby Penn IV and his high-living friends will have a freer schedule for the forseeable future. The Republican National Committee is knocking down speculation that it had planned to reconstitute the Young Eagles.

That’s the group of young donors that was grounded last month after flying too close to the sun by putting the tab for a trip to an L.A. bondage club on the RNC’s tab. In the wake of that news, the RNC fired the staffer who oversaw the program, and said the group’s events had been placed on hold.

Yesterday, Politico reported that RNC officials had made moves towards getting the group back up and running. That prompted a denial from Doug Heye, an RNC spokesman, who told the news site: “The Young Eagles program is not being reconstituted.”

And in an email to TPMmuckraker, Heye denied that there was ever a plan to do so. “The program is not being reconstituted and was never going to be,” he said.

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