Posted on 05/30/2011 9:51:39 PM PDT by doug from upland
BY Celeste Katz
Rep. Anthony Weiner hired a lawyer to explore if he should file a lawsuit or criminal charges against whoever hacked his Twitter account and sent an obscene photo to a college student on the West Coast.
Our Alison Gendar reports from D.C., with an assist from Joe Jackson and me:
The congressman viewed the incident as a time-wasting prank, but retained a lawyer to advise him on what civil or criminal actions should be taken, Weiner spokesman Dave Arnold said.
"At a time when the GOP is playing games with the debt limit, a member of the Supreme Court is refusing to recuse himself from matters he has a financial interest in, and middle class incomes are stagnant, many want to change the subject. I don't," Weiner said in a statement. "This was a prank, and a silly one. I'm focused on my work."
The online drama began over the weekend when a lewd photo appeared in Weiner’s Twitter stream addressed to a 21-year-old journalism student but visible to all 40,000 of his Twitter followers.
The photo was a crotch shot of a man in form-fitting briefs that left little to the imagination. It was quickly deleted and Weiner said he’d been hacked.
In an exclusive statement to the New York Daily News, the student, Gennette Cordova said she had never met or privately spoken to the married Queens politico, and said both she and the congressman were victims of online pranksters.
“I have never met Congressman Weiner, though I am a fan,” said Cordova, 21, of Seattle, Wash. “I’ve never been to New York or to DC.”
She issued a lengthy statement, complaining about how she’s been characterized online: “I have seen myself labeled as the ‘Femme Fatale of Weinergate,’ ‘Anthony Weiner’s 21-year-old coed mistress’ and ‘the self-proclaimed girlfriend of Anthony Weiner.’”
“All of this is so outlandish that I don’t know whether to be pissed off or amused, quite frankly," she said.
Sunday, Weiner’s spokesman Dave Arnold said: “This is intended to be a distraction, and we’re not going to let it become one. Anthony’s accounts were obviously hacked. He doesn’t know the person named by the hacker, and we will be consulting on what steps to take next.”
Outside his Forest Hills home, Weiner, declined further comment last night as he went for a walk with wife Huma Abedin, a former top Senate aide to Hillary Clinton.
A Capitol Police spokeswoman said the force did not have a complaint from Weiner or an open investigation.
Some right-wing bloggers insist it must be proof that Weiner, a darling of liberal Democrats, was having an affair with Cordova, who had once jokingly Tweeted: “I wonder what my boyfriend @RepWeiner is up to.”
News of the lewd photo was first reported by Andrew Breitbart’s biggovernment.com, which said the image was posted to Weiner’s account with yfrog, an on-line image-sharing site.
“Contrary to the impression that I apparently gave from my tweet, I am not his girlfriend,” Cordova wrote in her statement.
Cordova said she has been harassed for weeks online after she started following Weiner on Twitter and the congressman added her to the list of about 200 people he follows. She told the News she never had any private on-line conversations with the congressman.
Her harrasser “started posting about me, saying, ‘Oh, the congressman is following school girls,’ tweeting it over and over. It was very annoying,” Cordova told the Daily News.
When the crotch shot appeared online, she said the same Twitter user was the first to comment on it. Cordova said she blocked her accounts and thought that would be the end of it. But taking down her information only fanned the flames
But what if someone else reports the crime to the FBI for him and they open a file? :-) After all, a federal crime has been committed. Anyone having knowledge of the crime has a responsibility to report it.
It would still be interesting to know why he was one of 73 people following her on Twitter. Why was a busy congressman, who does not want to be distracted by the right wing, spending any time at all following a college girl in Seattle?
He should co-author a book with John Edwards: “How not to react to a scandal.”
They idolize the Clintons, so I'm guessing this is an open marriage/political marriage kind of thing like the Clintons. Weiner was sending private tweets to a porn star and also was following on twitter numerous other very young women.
Is there a 13 year old love child?
We should ask Mossad.
They’ve probably got his weiner bugged.
Weiner is the new Tiger Woods.
Hos in different area codes.
But he’s skinnier. Uglier. With a tiny ween.
Weiner Woods?
Oscar Meyer also has a file on him
1. You don’t hire an attorney to see about filing criminal charges, you can’t, only a prosecutor can. You hire an attorney to either defend your interests under the law or to keep you from running afoul of the law. It looks like the latter in this case.
2. Another reason that the MSMediots are irrelevant is when discussing a woman who was sent a lewd tweet from a Congressman’s account they say: “... Cordova, who had once jokingly Tweeted: “I wonder what my boyfriend @RepWeiner is up to.”” Seems to me the jury is out on how much she was joking and a skeptical news person would never write what I quoted particularly using the modifier “jokingly”. So when you reveal yourself not to be a newsperson, don’t be surprised when we treat you as a partisan hack.
I can’t wait for Mark Levin to comment on his favorite topic, “Anthony’s Weiner.”
Levin loves commenting on unfaithful folks, and also perverts.
Breitbart is calling for a “forensic analysis” of the penis photo hahahaa.
It’s after midnight EST.
Coffee is percolating in newsrooms as they prepare for the morning’s big stories.
A great beginning to Weiner Week!
Hiring a lawyer?
The coverup is always worse than the crime.
That would be really cool if the Mossad would “expose” him.—gross but cool.........Maybe, while they are at it the Mossad could expose all zero’s social security numbers and what was on his passport when he went to Pakistan.....
After the stab in the back, they really, really should.
Didn’t follow this closely, but why is it a crime to send someone a photo of your shorts?
Could this just be publicity for Wiener? He is a liberal, so sexual misbehavior is sort of a badge of honor, isn’t it?
I’m sure someone hacked into the Congressman’s account, and sent a single sexually oriented tweet, which just happened to be addressed to the very person who is known to be infatuated with Weiner...right.
Exactly right!
>>Could this just be publicity for Wiener? He is a liberal, so sexual misbehavior is sort of a badge of honor, isn’t it?<<
Yes it is. The left believes it is better to have no standards, thus they can’t ever be met, than to have high standards and fall short.
I wish my conscience would let me apply that standard.
But I wake up and see that gosh darn high bar. Every day. And every day I fall short.
That is not illegal. What is illegal is if someone hacked into his account and sent something to a third party, no matter what it is.
The shorts had a fish in them
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