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PA Republican Chair DiGiorgio Resigns Abruptly In Sexting Scandal

PA Republican Chair DiGiorgio Resigns Abruptly In Sexting Scandal

Hours after news broke that he sent a naked photo of himself to a woman, Val DiGiorgio resigned from his position as chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Tuesday.

During late 2018 and early 2019, DiGiorgio exchanged sexually charged messages through Facebook Messenger with Irina Goldstein, who was at the time a candidate for city council in Philadelphia. After a couple days of exchanging messages, DiGiorgio sent Goldstein a photo of his erect penis.

The two never had any physical relationship, and Goldstein later said that the explicit messages and photo made her feel uncomfortable and amounted to sexual harassment, according to her conversations with the Inquirer. Within hours of the Inquirer breaking the news about the exchanges, DiGiorgio resigned as chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party.

According to the Pennsylvania Republican Party website, DiGiorgio is married with five children.

In his resignation letter, DiGiorgio claims the messages were not harassment, but rather “mutual consensual communications.”

Goldstein disagrees.

“When a person has that much clout and power, I feel he abused that. And that was not necessary,” Goldstein told the Inquirer on Tuesday, adding she thinks it was appropriate that DiGiorgio stepped down.

DiGiorgio’s resignation in a cloud of scandal throws the Pennsylvania GOP into chaos when the 2020 election is a little over a year away. Trump narrowly won the state in 2016, beating Hillary Clinton by less than one percentage point.

In 2018, the state swung back towards Democrats, who flipped three seats from red to blue and handily kept control of both a U.S. Senate seat and the governor’s mansion.

In looking for replacements to lead the state party, Lou Barletta’s name has been floated. Barletta was the Republican Senate nominee in 2018 who lost to incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by a wide margin of 13 points.

Barletta is a far-right conservative and Trump ally who made a name for himself as an outspoken anti-immigrant politician. During the 2018 Senate race, one editorial board slammed him for embracing policies “straight out of the ’50s — the 1850s.”

“I’m hearing it is Barletta’s if he wants it, he holds a special place in Trump’s political orbit,” former Rep. Ryan Costello (R-PA) told Politico, referring to the state GOP chair position.

Rocked by a sex scandal, the Pennsylvania Republican Party is now leaderless — and the man who could take the helm leading into 2020 just saw the overwhelming majority of the state’s voters reject him.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

 

 

Ex-U.S. Representative Weiner Probed After Report Of Teen Girl Chats

Ex-U.S. Representative Weiner Probed After Report Of Teen Girl Chats

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors and New York police are investigating former U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner following a media report that he engaged in sexually-explicit cellphone and online messages with a 15-year-old girl, officials said on Thursday.

The probes came after DailyMail.com, the online version of a British newspaper, on Wednesday published an interview with the unnamed girl, who described months of online and text exchanges with Weiner in which she said he asked her to undress and touch herself.

Weiner, 52, did not respond to requests for comment. He told the Associated Press on Wednesday that he had “likely been the subject of a hoax.”

A New York Police Department spokesman said the police are “looking into the allegations and are investigating.”

The office of U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose in Charlotte is “reviewing all materials relevant to the matter,” spokeswoman Lia Bantavani said.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and the FBI are also investigating, according to a law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The investigations mark the latest in a series of scandals involving Weiner, a Democrat who represented a New York City district in Congress but resigned in 2011.

Last month, Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, one of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s top aides, said she was separating from her husband following another scandal.

Her announcement followed a New York Post report that Weiner had sent lewd photos of his bulging underwear — one while he was in bed with their toddler son — via Twitter to another woman.

His resignation in 2011 came in the wake of a scandal that arose from him accidentally posting a close-up of his underpants on Twitter.

Weiner denied for more than a week that he had sent the photo and intended it for a young woman, claiming instead that his Twitter account had been hacked.

After several women came forward to say they too had shared sexually charged exchanges with the married congressman, Weiner admitted he lied.

When Weiner later made an unsuccessful run for New York City mayor, explicit photos surfaced in July 2013 that he had sent under the pseudonym “Carlos Danger” to a young woman in Indiana.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Cartoon: Anthony’s Weiners

Cartoon: Anthony’s Weiners

Endorse This: James Clyburn’s Risqué Plan To Get Out The Vote

Endorse This: James Clyburn’s Risqué Plan To Get Out The Vote

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Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) has a suggestion for getting young people to the polls this November — but it doesn’t mean what the congressman thinks it does.

Click above to see Clyburn propose a get-out-the-vote plan that only Anthony Weiner could love — then share this video!

Video via Buzz Sourse/YouTube.

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