A New York Republican congressman resigned abruptly on Wednesday after a scandalous photo and e-mails surfaced that suggest the married father of one was seeking women outside his marriage. Rep. Christopher Lee, 46, left the Capitol on Wednesday after releasing a statement that said he felt he could no longer effectively represent his Western New York district. “The challenges we face in Western New York and across the country are too serious for me to allow this distraction to continue, and so I am announcing that I have resigned my seat in Congress effective immediately,” Lee said. “I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness.”
The photo and e-mails were first reported by the Web site Gawker. The site revealed a photo Lee sent to a woman he met on Craigslist, which showed him standing shirtless and flexing one of his biceps in front of a mirror. In mid-January, Lee had sent e-mails and a photo to a 34-year-old woman who listed herself in the Craigslist personals, the “Women for Men” section. The Gawker report described her as a government employee from Maryland, but did not name her.
She had sought a man who was “financially and emotionally secure” and specified that responders not “look like toads.”
Lee responded by e-mail the same day. He told the woman he was 39 years old, unmarried and “a very fit fun classy guy” according to the Gawker report. “I promise not to disappoint,” he wrote, further describing himself as “6ft 190lbs blond/blue.”
The woman forwarded the e-mails and photo to Gawker after searching him online and discovering who he was.
Lee was elected in 2008 and was serving his second term. He spoke to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, just before resigning, but leadership aides would not disclose whether Boehner encouraged him to resign. In the past, Boehner has expressed a “zero tolerance” policy toward GOP members who go astray and has generally forced them out quickly.
The state of New York will have to set a special election to fill the remainder of Lee’s term. The timing of that will be in the hands of the state’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The district has leaned Republican, even in years that the nation favored Democratic candidates. GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain carried it with 52 percent of the vote in 2008, even as Barack Obama won the state by an overwhelming margin.
