A day after Rep. Anthony Weiner admitted sending “inappropriate” messages and photographs to a half-dozen women, the New York Democrat was being urged by leaders of both parties to resign his congressional seat. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sent a formal letter to the ethics committee calling on the panel to “determine whether the rules of the House of Representatives have been violated” by Weiner. Pelosi stopped short of publicly calling for Weiner’s resignation, but Democratic aides said the letter was meant to step up the pressure on him to leave.
“The leadership is furious with how Weiner handled this,” a senior Democratic aide told The Washington Examiner.
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Democrats are particularly angry, aides said, about the way Weiner at first lied to everyone about a photo of a man’s crotch that was sent last month to a young woman from his Twitter account. Weiner for days insisted that his account had been hacked and that he did not send the photo. On Monday, though, he admitted the lewd picture was him and that he had sent it, as well as many other pictures and text messages to various women.
Still, Weiner insisted he would not resign.
“I wish there was some way I can defend him, but I can’t. OK?” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-N.Y., said when reporters asked him if Weiner should resign.
Some of the circulated photos showed a shirtless Weiner, reminiscent of a picture sent earlier this year by former Rep. Christopher Lee, R-N.Y., to a woman he met on Craigslist who was not his wife.
Lee was quickly forced to resign his seat by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who has upheld something of a zero tolerance policy for GOP lawmakers caught in scandals or breaking the law.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., on Tuesday called for Weiner to resign.
“I don’t condone his activity and I think he should resign,” Cantor told a group of Virginia business leaders, the Charlottesville Daily Progress reported.
Republican aides accuse Democrats of being far more reluctant to deal swiftly with errant members, pointing to Rep. Charlie Rangel, another New York Democrat who is still in office after being censured for failing to pay taxes and violating other House rules.
“Republicans have held their members to a high ethical standard, while the Democrats who used to call for ‘draining the swamp’ have not,” one senior GOP aide told The Examiner. “It’s a failure of leadership and the hypocrisy is off the charts.”
Weiner made no public statements Tuesday even as new revelations about his Twitter and Facebook escapades continued to emerge. The website TMZ broke the news that Weiner apparently tried to coach porn star Ginger Lee into lying about their online relationship. Weiner apparently drafted a statement for her to give to the press denying their tryst.
“I have nothing to do with the situation involving Rep. Weiner,” read the statement Weiner suggested the porn star use. “I follow his twitter feed. And for a brief time he followed me.”
