TMZ reports that Ginger Lee, a former porn star and one of several women to whom Rep. Weiner sent sexually-themed emails, was advised by the congressman to lie about their relationship. In one of the emails obtained by TMZ from June 1st, Rep. Weiner allegedly wrote:
The key is to have a short, thought out statement that tackles the top line questions and then refer people back to it. Have a couple of iterations of: “This is silly. Like so many others, I follow Rep. Weiner on Twitter. I don’t know him and have never met him. He briefly followed me and sent me a dm saying thank you for the follow. That’s it.”
And in an email from June 2, Weiner offered the service of his own PR staff in assisting Lee:
Do you need to talk to a professional PR type person to give u advice? I can have someone on my team call. [Yeah, my team is doing great. Ugh].
And here’s yet another proposed statement Weiner suggested from a June 2nd email:
“I have nothing to do with the situation involving Rep Weiner. I follow his twitter feed. And for a brief time he followed me. Much has been made of the fact that I have posted about my admiration for Rep Weiner and his politics. All I can say about that is that I’m a fan of his. Rep. Weiner sent me one short direct message thanking me for following him. I have never met Rep. Weiner and he has never sent me anything innappopriate (sic) …”
Though Weiner explicitly said he would not resign in his press conference yesterday, it’s hard to see how he can continue serving in Congress with emails like these having surfaced.