| Republican Representative Chris Lee (R-NY26) has been caught red-handed fishing for extramarital affairs on Craigslist, and forwarding topless pictures of himself to his would-be targets. One of the women Lee talked with, a 34 year old government worker from Maryland, provided Gawker.com with complete copies of her correspondence with Lee and the photos he sent, after she discovered that the "39 year old divorced lobbyist" was in fact a 46 year old married Congressman.
Lee's office has as yet not come up with a coherent defense, admitting that the GMail account used does in fact belong to Lee, claiming that it may have been hacked in a security breach on January 21st. However, flirtatious emails were sent more than a week before that, starting on the 14th, and Lee's office has not yet explained how the "hacker" would obtain a topless picture of Lee. According to metadata embedded within the photograph, it was taken by a Blackberry smartphone such as the one used by Chris Lee, and it was taken in Washington DC.
The GMail address was also confirmed as the one associated with Lee's personal Facebook account, which was mysteriously deleted shortly after Gawker.com began asking questions of his office.
Lee has been one of the rising stars in the House GOP, and a favorite of Eric Cantor. First elected in 2008, Lee has since then carved out a staunchly conservative record on issues like abortion, taxes, and healthcare. He is also, apparently, not just a supporter of "Don't Ask Don't Tell," but he also practices it.
Speaking personally, since this is MY Congressman, I always rather expected him to get caught with his pants down. Between the existing rumors of marital infidelity (he was, according to persistent but unverifiable rumor around 2008-2009, sleeping with a hairdresser from the Buffalo suburbs near where he lived) and his rich-guy-with-good-hair attitude, I doubted he'd really be the type to keep his trousers zipped.
Still, finding women off Craigslist just confirms the other part of what I thought about him--that he is a moron. |
