With Anthony Weiner currently placing second in polls taken for the 2013 Democratic primary for NYC mayor, it's a question we need to start asking.
One of the women Weiner admitted to communicating with on Twitter two years ago
was a 17 year old female from Delaware.
Both Weiner and the 17 year old claimed that the communications were not sexual in nature, though some of Weiner's communications with other women on Twitter were.
On the face of it, if both Weiner and the 17 year old say that Weiner did nothing wrong in his Twitter communications with her, then that ought to be the end of the matter.
Except that Anthony Weiner's word is worthless in these matters.
As TMZ reported two years ago, one woman Weiner sexted with was coached by the former Congressman on how to lie to the media over the Twitter matter:
Weiner and former porn star Ginger Lee exchanged scores of sexual emails over a long period of time. When the underwear scandal broke on May 28, Lee began receiving calls from the media, and Weiner was more than happy to help her control the situation ... by lying.
On June 2, Weiner emailed 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]."
It's unclear if Weiner's PR team is from his Congressional staff. If so, Weiner could run afoul of House Ethics Rules as well as the law. Weiner put on a full court press, urging Lee to lie about their relationship. On June 1, he emailed her: "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.'"
Weiner suggested a nice touch -- some good ol' Southern charm: "And then maybe insert some y'alls in there."
On June 2, Weiner sent Lee a proposed statement she could give to the press: "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) ..."
Weiner then asked Lee directly, "How's it [the proposed statement] feel?"
Given that Weiner is on record having tried to help one of his Twitter friends to lie about WeinerGate, I don't think we can take either Weiner's or the 17 year old female's words at face value that Weiner did not engage in communication of a sexual nature with the 17 year old.
If Weiner was willing to coach former pornographic actress Ginger Lee on how to spin the media with lies and deceptions, it is safe to assume he would have been willing to coach the 17 year old in Delaware to do the same thing.
The only difference is, if Weiner coached her to lie to police investigating the matter, he then engaged in a conspiracy to cover up criminal activity.
Many people on the campaign trail seem willing to forgive Weiner his sexting scandal, but I wonder if they would be so jejune about the matter if they knew there was a 17 year old in the mix?
If Anthony Weiner is elected mayor of New York City, he will be the head of the NYC public school system.
Any teacher or school official that engaged in inappropriate communications with a NYC student, say a 17 year old high school female, would be subject to discipline and dismissal from the job, plus arrest.
If Anthony Weiner engaged in sexual communications with a 17 year old on Twitter, he should not be allowed to run the NYC school system.
We know Weiner engaged in private Twitter communication with a 17 year old and we know he tried to coach another female Twitter fan, Ginger Lee, to lie about the sexual communications he engaged in with her on Twitter.
We do not know whether Weiner engaged in sexual communications with the 17 year old from Delaware or, if he did, coached her to lie about the matter as he did with Ginger Lee.
But there are certainly enough questions surrounding these circumstances to warrant more attention and investigation.
Anthony Weiner lied and lied and lied when he was first caught in WeinerGate two years ago.
He says he did nothing wrong with the 17 year old, but as we know from how he handled the WeinerGate disclosures, his word cannot be trusted.
Somebody needs to put Weiner on record again by asking him the following:
Congressman, if you are elected mayor of New York City, you will have control of the New York City public schools, a system with over 1 million students. Obviously we want a person of morals and ethics in charge of that system and those children, which is why the public needs to know more about your Twitter communications with a 17 year old female two years ago.
You claimed the communications were not sexual in nature, and the 17 year old told the same thing to Delaware police when they investigated. But you are on record having tried to coach another Twitter fan, former pornographic actress Ginger Lee, on how to lie to the press over the WeinerGate matter. So my question to you is this:
Did you engage in communications of a sexual nature with the 17 year old from Delaware? If you say you did not, how can we trust your word, given that you tried to coach Ginger Lee to lie to the press over the WeinerGate matter two years ago?
Weiner is a slippery fellow and he has been less than forthcoming about this matter.
Before we get into the heat of the summer and the heat of the Democratic primary campaign, it is time to pin Weiner down about this.
It matters.
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