Former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner is now being accused of
trading inappropriate messages–including another explicit image–with a
22-year-old woman shortly after he resigned from Congress over a
extramarital sexting scandal in June 2011. He has not denied the
allegation.
At a news conference late Tuesday afternoon at Gay Men’s Health
Crisis headquarters, an HIV-advocacy organization, in New York City,
Weiner largely reiterated his earlier statement with his wife, Huma
Abedin, by his side. He added that he was “surprised that more things
haven’t come out sooner.”
“Some of these things happened before my resignation, some of them
happened after,” Weiner said. “But the fact is that was also the time
that my wife and I were working through some things in our marriage.”
Weiner said he will not withdraw from the mayoral race and will
continue to campaign with his wife. “I want to bring my vision to the
people of the city of New York. I hope they’re willing to still continue
to give me a second chance, and I hope that they realize in many ways
what happened today was something that frankly had happened before, but
it doesn’t represent all that much that is new.”
His wife, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton, spoke at her first
press conference and said that her husband’s resignation marked “the
beginning of a time in our marriage that was very difficult and it took
us a very long time to get through it.”
“It look a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy to get to a place
where I could forgive Anthony. It was not an easy choice in any way but I
made the decision that it was worth staying in this marriage,” Abedin
said.
She also admitted that her husband “made some horrible mistakes, both before he resigned from Congress and after.”
Weiner also confirmed that he was still sending sexually explicit messages even after
People
magazine published a profile on him and his wife. A reporter asked him
when was the last time he sent an explicit message. “Um, I can’t say
exactly,” Weiner replied. “Sometime last summer, I think.”
The same reporter followed up and asked if the last message was sent after his wife told
People,
“It took a lot of work to get to where are are today, but I want people
to know we’re a normal family.” The couple both nodded and Weiner said,
“Yes, yes.”
A nightlife website, TheDirty.com, disclosed a series of
lewd chat messages on
Monday allegedly sent by Weiner, who used the handle “Carlos Danger,”
to a woman in August 2012. The website’s founder, Nik Richie, has also
published an explicit photograph and a timeline of the scandal according
to the anonymous woman.
The screenshots of the conversations were taken from Facebook and the
social network Formspring. Richie has said he has been in contact with
the young woman. According to the Richie’s source, the woman maintained a
relationship on the Internet and phone for six months after being
pursued by Anthony Weiner through Facebook.
Anthony Weiner found himself caught in another sexting scandal
Tuesday like the one that destroyed his congressional career, but stood
side-to-side with his wife to say that he will remain in the race for
mayor of New York City.
“This is entirely behind me,” Weiner said at news conference, just
hours after he confirmed exchanging a newly disclosed round of sexually
explicit photos and text messages with a woman online.
At the news conference, he acknowledged some of the activity took
place after he resigned from the House two years ago for the same sort
of behavior.
The new lewd correspondence was posted Monday by the gossip website
The Dirty. The woman involved was not identified.
Weiner turned the microphone over to his wife, Huma Abedin, who
reaffirmed her support for her husband and said the matter is “between
us.”
“I love him. I have forgiven him. And as we have said from the
beginning, we are moving forward,” said Abedin, a longtime adviser to
former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The allegation could severely test voters’ willingness to forgive
Weiner, who has said he spent the two years since the scandal trying to
make things right with his wife and earn redemption. Three of his rivals
for mayor immediately called on Weiner to drop out of the race.
The 48-year-old Democrat, who resigned his House seat in June 2011
after acknowledging having sexual conversations with at least a
half-dozen women, has been near the top of most mayoral polls since his
late entry into the race this spring.
“I said that other texts and photos were likely to come out and today
they have,” Weiner said in a statement issued by his campaign earlier
in the day. “I want to again say that I am very sorry to anyone who was
on the receiving end of these messages and the disruption this has
caused.”
The woman with whom he exchanged the messages told The Dirty that she
was 22 when she began chatting with Weiner on the social networking
site Formspring. She said their online relationship began in July 2012
and lasted for six months.
She claimed Weiner used the alias “Carlos Danger” for their exchanges, but she knew she was talking to the former congressman.
The exchanges posted on The Dirty consist of sexually explicit
fantasizing about various sex acts. At one point, the man reported to be
Weiner wrote, “I’m deeply flawed.”
The woman said Weiner promised to help her get a job at the political
website Politico and suggested meeting in a Chicago condo for a tryst.
The woman claimed that she and Weiner exchanged nude photos of
themselves and engaged in frequent phone sex. The Dirty ran a pixelated
photo of what appears to be a man’s genitals.
“This was a bad situation for me because I really admired him. E
NEW YORK -- New York City
mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner admitted on Tuesday to sending
additional sexually explicit photos and texts to a woman he met online
-- an exchange she says began more than a year after he resigned from
Congress for similar behavior.
The allegation could severely test
voters' willingness to forgive Weiner, who has said he spent the two
years since the scandal trying to make things right with his wife and
earn redemption. Three of his rivals for mayor immediately called on
Weiner to drop out of the race.
Weiner, who resigned his House
seat in June 2011 after acknowledging having sexual conversations with
at least a half-dozen women, has been near the top of most mayoral polls
since his late entry into the race this spring.
The newly
revealed X-rated correspondence was posted Monday by the gossip website
The Dirty. The woman involved was not identified.
"I said that
other texts and photos were likely to come out and today they have,"
Weiner said in a statement issued by his campaign. "I want to again say
that I am very sorry to anyone who was on the receiving end of these
messages and the disruption this has caused."
The 48-year-old
Democrat did not say when the exchanges occurred, but he said his
behavior created "challenges in our marriage that extended past my
resignation."
From the beginning of his mayoral bid, Weiner has said that he learned from his mistakes and that his wife -- Huma
adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton -- was the driving force behind his comeback attempt.
The
woman, who told the website she was 22 when she began chatting with
Weiner on the social networking site Formspring, said their online
relationship began in July 2012 and lasted for six months. She claimed
Weiner used the alias "Carlos Danger" for their exchanges, but she knew
she was talking to the former congressman.
She said Weiner
promised to help her get a job at the political website Politico and
suggested meeting in a Chicago condo for a tryst.
The exchanges
posted on The Dirty consist of sexually explicit fantasizing about
various sex acts. At one point, the man reported to be Weiner wrote,
"I'm deeply flawed."
The woman claimed that she and Weiner
exchanged nude photos of themselves and engaged in frequent phone sex.
The Dirty ran a pixelated photo of what appears to be a man's genitals.
"This
was a bad situation for me because I really admired him. Even post
scandal, I thought he was misunderstood. Until I got to know him. I
thought I loved him. Pretty pathetic," the woman was quoted as telling
the website.
She said he later asked her to destroy the evidence
of their chats. She insisted that she never had sex with Weiner or
received any payment from him.
The woman claimed her relationship
with Weiner "fizzled" in November 2012. She said she last heard from
him this past April, when his intention to run for mayor was first
revealed in a New York Times Magazine profile.
"This behavior is
behind me," Weiner said in his statement Tuesday. "I apologized to Huma
and am grateful that she has worked through these issues with me and for
her forgiveness."
He also said that "some things posted today are true and some are not," but he did not elaborate.
Weiner's
campaign spokeswoman did not respond to requests to clarify the timing
of the newly revealed exchange. Weiner's campaign announced a
late-afternoon news conference. He was also expected to attend a mayoral
forum later Tuesday evening.
His wife, who was pregnant when the
sexting scandal broke in 2011 and gave birth months later, has played a
large and increasing role in his mayoral campaign. She made an
appearance in his campaign kick-off video, has led his fundraising
effort and recently made her debut on the campaign trail. Two weekends
ago, she walked hand-in-hand with Weiner as they talked to voters on a
Harlem street.
Two of his mayoral rivals -- Public Advocate Bill
de Blasio and former City Councilman Sal Albanese, both Democrats, and
billionaire John Catsimatidis, a Republican -- quickly called on Weiner
to abandon his quest for office, as did a lesser candidate in the race.
"Enough
is enough," said de Blasio. "The sideshows of this election have gotten
in the way of the debate we should be having about the future of this
city."
Another mayoral hopeful, city Comptroller John Liu,
stopped short of calling for Weiner to bow out, but suggested his
"propensity for pornographic selfies is a valid issue for voters."
The
other leading Democratic candidates, including City Council Speaker
Christine Quinn and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, did not
immediately comment on the new revelations.
The disclosure
suddenly puts Weiner's indiscretions, judgment and candor back in the
forefront of his campaign and could test voters' confidence in him,
political analysts said.
Some voters have said they felt Weiner
had atoned for his past and were willing to give him a second chance.
But a third, after hearing allegations that his misbehavior continued
after his resignation?
"It makes it tougher to believe this is
behind him," said Democratic former state Assemblyman Michael Benjamin,
now a political consultant.
But given the corps of voters who
have shown willingness to forgive Weiner's prior behavior, the latest
revelation may not be a campaign knockout, said Jerry Skurnik, a
longtime Democratic consultant who is not working with any mayoral
candidates this year.
"At best, it's a minor negative" that will
turn off some voters, he said. "The question is whether it's a major
negative" -- and whether there were enough forgiving voters to begin
with for Weiner to win.
Some New Yorkers were disappointed by the
news that Weiner had apparently continued his online activities even
after leaving office.
"I think he had a chance to redeem himself
and if he did it twice, he really betrayed the public's trust again,"
said Jeremy Green, 22. "I think he's past the point of no return for New
Yorkers."
The revelations come just two weeks after another
scandal-scarred candidate, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, announced
his own attempt at political redemption. Spitzer, who resigned in 2008
after admitting to paying for sex with prostitutes, is running for city
comptroller.
A spokeswoman for Spitzer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Weiner's
problems began in May 2011, when a website run by conservative
commentator Andrew Breitbart posted a photograph of a man's bulging
underwear and said it had been sent from Weiner's Twitter account to a
Seattle woman. Weiner denied he sent the photo, claiming his Twitter had
been hacked.
But after more women came forward and more photographic evidence emerged, Weiner admitted he lied.
He then entered two years of self-imposed political exile, only to return this spring.
Under
a huge media spotlight, he apologized repeatedly for his behavior in
the initial days of his bid but then pivoted quickly into an
issues-based campaign. He was largely well-received by voters and
quickly established himself as a favorite in the race.
