IT TOOK representative Anthony Weiner only minutes to end his 13 years in the US Congress yesterday, three weeks after he pushed the “send” button on an e-mail to a college student, with a link to a lewd photograph of himself. Mr Weiner inadvertently sent the message to tens of thousands of Twitter followers.
“I am here again today to apologise for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused,” Mr Weiner told reporters and constituents at a centre for senior citizens in Brooklyn. “I make this apology to my neighbours and my constituents and particularly to my wife, Huma.”
New revelations emerged almost daily throughout the “Weinergate” scandal, described by the New York Times as a “tragi-comedy”.
After attempting to pass the lewd tweet off as a hoax or prank, Mr Weiner would not say whether the bulging pair of underpants were his own. In a tearful press conference on June 6th, he admitted he had sent the message, said he lied to protect himself, but refused to resign.
He also acknowledged having sent sexually explicit messages to at least six women.
It then emerged Huma Abedin, Mr Weiner’s wife of one year, who is a senior aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is pregnant. At the same time, the conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart – who first broke the scandal on his website biggovernment.com – released a photograph of Mr Weiner’s naked genitalia which the congressman had allegedly sent to another woman.
On June 11th, it was confirmed that Mr Weiner exchanged e-mails with a 17-year-old girl in Delaware. Police said there was no evidence of criminal activity, but calls for Mr Weiner’s resignation crescendoed, with the entire Democratic leadership asking him to go.
In a television interview on June 13th, President Barack Obama said: “I can tell you that if it was me, I would resign.”
On June 15th, Ginger Lee, described as “an exotic dancer and former pornographic film actress”, read a statement at a press conference in New York, saying she communicated electronically with Mr Weiner “on a fairly regular basis” and that he coached her to lie when the scandal broke.
Gloria Allred, the celebrity lawyer representing Ms Lee, read excerpts from what she said amounted to about 100 e-mails, in which Mr Weiner repeatedly referred to his “package”.
House Democrats spoke of stripping Mr Weiner of his committee assignments, or expelling him from their caucus. He said he wanted to talk to his wife in person when she returned from a week-long trip to Africa with Mrs Clinton.
Mr Weiner seemed anything but broken, much less contrite, in his four-minute resignation speech yesterday. Despite frequent interruptions by hecklers, he ploughed through the text in a firm voice, praising his constituents as hardworking, patriotic, opinionated and authentic neighbours, and thanking his parents, brother and wife.
“The middle class story of New York is my story,” he said. “I’m very proud of that.”
Charles Schumer, the New York senator who was a mentor to Mr Weiner, called his downfall “heartbreaking”.
Until the “sexting” scandal, Mr Weiner was favoured to succeed Michael Bloomberg as mayor of New York.