Here's Rep. Weiner's initial statement during the conference:
"Last Friday night, I tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle. Once I realized I posted to Twitter, I panicked, I took it down, and said that I had been hacked.
"I then continued to stick to that story, which was a hugely incredible mistake. This woman was unwittingly dragged into this and bears absolutely no responsibility. I'm so sorry to have disrupted her life in this way.
"To be clear, the picture was of me and I sent it. I'm deeply sorry for the pain this has caused my wife Huma and our family, my contituents, my friends, supporters, and staff.
"In addition, over the past 2 years, I have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over Twitter, Facebook, email, and ocassionally, on the phone with women I have met online.
"I've exchanged messages and photos of the explicit nature with about six women over the last three years. For the most part, these communications took place before my marriage though some took place after. To be clear, I have never met any of these women or had physical relationships at any time.
"I haven't told the truth and I've done things that I deeply regret. I bought pain to people I care about the most and to people who believed in me and for that I'm deeply sorry.
"I apologize to my wife and to our families as well as to our friends and supporters. I'm deeply ashamed of my terrible judgement and actions."
The scandal dubbed as "Weinergate" broke out last weekend after Rep. Weiner's Twitter message was discovered and featured at conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart's Big Government blog. Wiener initially denied any wrongdoing and said that his account had been hacked.
Twitter and the main stream media have been on fire last week over accusations and counter-accusations. Sympathetic left-wing bloggers and columnists accused Breitbart of orchestrating the hack and setting up the Congressman.
The threat of another woman coming out with more explicit photos of Wiener may be the factor that forced the congressman to confess.
Andrew Breitbart, who spoke in the same press conference before Rep. Weiner arrived, said he feels vindicated and that he wants an apology from Congressman Weiner.
"Quite frankly, I want an apology for him being complicit in a 'blame the messenger' strategy. Everything that I've said so far has come to be true."Weiner did apologize to Breitbart during the press conference.
Asked why he's not releasing a new more explicit photo in his possession for now, Breitbart answered that he's doing the decent thing to save the Congressman's marriage.
"You know what I would be accused of if I release this photo? I'm doing this to save his family, ok? And if this guy wants to start fighting with me again, I have this photo..."
Weiner maintains that he didn't break the law because he didn't use government equipment in sending those pictures and that he's not resigning. Well, whatever the outcome will be of the ethics investigation being called by his own party, Congressman's Weiner has been effectively neutered by Andrew Breitbart.
His hypocrisy has been throughly exposed and his credibility among independent voters took a severe beating. It may take him a very long time to recover from this, if he manages to salvage his political career at all. Job well done to Andrew Breitbart and his editorial team for exposing the hypocrisy of the left.
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