New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner says he did, indeed, trade lewd messages with a woman after his departure from Congress.
Weiner, if you remember, resigned from his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives due to an extramarital sexting scandal and the lies he told to try to cover up what he had done.
Today, TheDirty.com — described by Buzzfeed as a "nightlife site" — revealed a series of explicit messages allegedly sent from Weiner to an unidentified woman in August of 2012. The website also published explicit photographs allegedly sent by Weiner.
After the original scandal, Weiner stayed away from the limelight. But he returned to politics earlier this year, announcing a run for New York City mayor. The announcement was preceded by a media blitz, in which Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin — a long-time aide to Hilary Clinton — appeared to talk frankly about the struggles stemming from the scandal. The New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy feature, the central message of which was that Weiner and his wife had mended fences and Weiner had learned his lesson.
USA Today reports that Weiner's campaign issued a statement saying some of the allegations made by The Dirty were true, that Weiner had continued sexting even after he resigned his seat in June of 2011.
"I said that other texts and photos were likely to come out, and today they have," Weiner said in a statement, according to USA Today. "These things that I did were wrong and hurtful to my wife and caused us to go through challenges in our marriage that extended past my resignation from Congress."
Weiner added:
"While some things that have been posted today are true and some are not, there is no question that what I did was wrong. This behavior is behind me. I've apologized to Huma and am grateful that she has worked through these issues with me and for her forgiveness. I want to again say that I am very sorry to anyone who was on the receiving end of these messages and the disruption that this has caused. As my wife and I have said, we are focused on moving forward."