THE POLITICAL career of New York Representative Anthony Weiner continued its descent in flames yesterday, with new calls for his resignation, from left and right, and the revelation that Mr Weiner coached a porn star to lie about her internet flirtation with him.
Mr Weiner (46), will celebrate the first anniversary of his marriage to Huma Abedin (35), a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, tomorrow. He confessed at a tearful press conference on June 6th that he had conducted e-affairs with six women via the social media Facebook and Twitter over the past three years, some of them since his marriage to Ms Abedin.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus yesterday taunted the Democratic leadership to force Mr Weiner to resign.
“If (the Democratic minority leader) Nancy Pelosi was serious about draining the swamp . . . there are certain times that leaders need to step up and make a difficult decision to tell their own that they should leave,” Mr Priebus told a press breakfast hosted by Bloomberg News.
“Do we really need an ethics investigation to determine whether this guy’s a creep or not?” After maintaining for the previous week that someone had hacked into his Twitter account, and telling campaign contributors he was the victim of a “vast, right-wing conspiracy,” Mr Weiner telephoned Ms Pelosi 15 minutes before his press conference on Monday to tell her the truth, the New York Times reported yesterday. Ms Pelosi was furious, and demanded an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.
Senator Harry Reid, the leading Democrat in the upper house, also washed his hands of Mr Weiner, saying “I wish there was some way I can defend him, but I can’t.” If Mr Weiner asked him for advice, Mr Reid said he would say, “Call someone else”.
Comments from Mr Weiner’s constituents, financial backers and pundits indicate that his most serious offence was not his addiction to “sexting,” but lying about it.
The scandal has prompted widespread soul searching about politicians’ reckless behaviour and delusions of invincibility, and the line between the virtual world and reality.
A steady stream of damaging information, including televised interviews with Mr Weiner’s internet conquests, has continued all week. Andrew Breitbart, the publisher of the right-wing website Big Government, who first revealed that Mr Weiner had sent a lewd photograph of his bulging underwear to a college student in Washington state on May 30th, yesterday showed what he called an “X-rated photograph” of Mr Weiner’s nude genitalia to radio hosts.
The tabloid New York Post reported that after the scandal broke, Mr Weiner exchanged e-mails with a porn star called Ginger Lee, coaching her to say, “I follow Rep. Weiner on Twitter. I don’t know him and have never met him,” if she was questioned by journalists.
Mr Weiner also suggested to Ms Lee that he could “have someone on my team call” if she “need(ed) to talk to a professional PR type person”.
Lisa Weiss, a Las Vegas blackjack dealer with whom Mr Weiner exchanged raunchy messages, for example suggesting he might “do you on (the) desk” of a television presenter, wrote on Mr Weiner’s Facebook page: “you are so awesome when you yell at those fox news” interviewers. “I bet you have so many chicks after you! you are our liberal stud.”
Mr Weiner has insisted that he will not resign from his seat in Congress, to which he has been elected seven times. But his own camp have deserted him, and his position is increasingly untenable. His old friend, the television comic Jon Stewart, apologised on Tuesday night for having been too lenient regarding Mr Weiner on The Daily Show, and said he should resign if the allegations against him were true.
Although they have not commented publicly, Bill and Hillary Clinton, who survived a long bout of what the former president’s aides called “bimbo eruptions,” are reportedly furious with Mr Weiner.
Mr Clinton officiated at Mr Weiner’s marriage to Ms Abedin last year. The bride has worked continuously with Mrs Clinton in the White House, in the Senate, and now at the State Department.
Ms Abedin, who is half Indian, half Pakistani and grew up in Saudi Arabia, is a practicing Muslim. Mr Weiner is Jewish. She left on a week-long journey to Africa with Mrs Clinton on Tuesday night.