Chris Lee Resigns After Craigslist Photos Come To Light (VIDEO)

Rep. Chris Lee (R-N.Y.) announced early Wednesday evening that he will resign his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Buffalo-based station YNN relays a statement from Lee, who has signaled that he will vacate his post immediately:

"It has been a tremendous honor to serve the people of Western New York. I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness.
"The challenges we face in Western New York and across the country are too serious for me to allow this distraction to continue, and so I am announcing that I have resigned my seat in Congress effective immediately."

News of Lee's decision to step down comes just hours after it was reported that the married congressman sent shirtless photos of himself to a woman who he connected with on the "Women Seeking Men" section of Craigslist.

HuffPost's Nick Wing reported earlier in the day:

According to Gawker, the 46-year-old married Republican responded to a listing posted last month by a 34-year-old woman looking for "financially & emotionally secure" men who "don't look like toads."

In an email, sent from an account admittedly registered to Lee, someone reportedly replied, claiming to be a 39-year-old, "6ft 190lbs blond/blue," "divorced" "lobbyist."

After a few flirty back-and-forths, the woman told Gawker that Lee sent her a picture of himself, sans shirt.

Asked for comment, Lee's spokesman provided a denial and claimed that the congressman's email account had been hacked.

"The Congressman is happily married," the spokesman told Gawker. "The only time he or his wife posted something online was to sell old furniture when they changed the apartment they keep in DC."

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UPDATE: "People cheat everyday, but only dumb people get caught," said the woman who received the half-naked photos. She gave a full interview to TheLoop21.com on Wednesday night.

Her blunt evaluation comes after receiving flirty emails that used the congressman's name, originated from the email address associated with his Facebook profile (since deleted), and contained photos that clearly seemed to show his face -- and shirtless torso. So much for internet anonymity.

The woman, who works in government, requested to maintain her own anonymity in exchange for the accounts provided to Gawker and TheLoop21. HuffPost spoke with a friend of the woman who confirmed her story about getting the emails and photos after posting a personal ad on Craigslist.

In the interview with TheLoop21.com, the woman said she figured the story put forward by Lee's spokesman about a hacker was "bullsh*t."

"Dating in D.C. sucks," she summed up. Click here for more.

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Via TPM comes video of Lee's resignation announcement:

Comments

[onehenry]

04:19 AM on 02/14/2011

If only you could take your republican blinders off and expand your vocabulary from no.I see your perspective as it must be good for me.

[sippewissett]

05:52 PM on 02/13/2011

Lee's father, who called for him to resign to avoid further embarassment to the family, is smarter than his wife who accompanied him to a FL resort so they could work on their relationship...unless the sound of flying, broken plates I hear is actually coming from that resort.

[Missy Bell]

05:44 PM on 02/12/2011

Many are going to disagree with me but this is a martial issue that should have been addressed between this guy and his wife. It is not an issue that should have made him resign from his job. It was a marital issue not an employment issue. I wish I could have a personal chat with him and I would give him some wise advise on how to avoid situations like this when posting on craigslist. Wink, wink. Sorry folks!

[thrugreeneyez]

03:31 PM on 02/12/2011

More Republican "family values"!

[amd02148]

01:29 AM on 02/12/2011

Anyone in general: I lost 3 fans, is that because someone deleted their account?

[JessWonderin]

12:31 PM on 02/12/2011

I "lost" 20 . .

[amd02148]

04:32 PM on 02/12/2011

Wow, Jess I just lost one more, I had 503, yest. 500 now I have 499, people are jumping ship.

[thrugreeneyez]

03:32 PM on 02/12/2011

I actually don't know but I think people can "unfan" you.

[Mmmoke]

12:07 AM on 02/12/2011

I hope someone can explain this to me, what kind of a career politician and an elected official with thousands of constituents, who knows very well that even a wrong sentence uttered in public could spell disaster for his career, would send his half nude picture to an anonymous person on the net????? My teenage kids have more sense than this congressman.

[filiusj]

06:44 PM on 02/11/2011

Are the pubs starting to get tuff? You used to be able to get a hummer in the male bathroom, hire a prostitute or use public funds to see your lover in another country without having to quit. Is the party of family values actually getting some values?

[Michelle in CT]

04:31 PM on 02/12/2011

Here's my theory- you are totally correct, therefore there's more here than just this. Waiting for other shoe to drop, since Vitter and Ensign both still senators...if this guy resigned, he knows more than we do about who else might have his picture- or more!

[sippewissett]

05:55 PM on 02/13/2011

"Is the party of family values actually getting some values?"

No, because if they were, Ensign would be out on his rear, along with Vitter. Those two miscreants -- and any other blatantly unethical Reps or Senators -- should be bounced from Congress so we can have confidence in the ETHICS of those in office.

[imtruthmonger]

06:42 PM on 02/11/2011

Clearly the basic law of relationship was omitted in his social studies class:

There is no such thing as a safe conspiracy!

[gayandmarried]

05:42 PM on 02/11/2011

as a gay man i find him very unnattractive

PLEASE stay straight and continue to chase that brown sugar you right wing hipocrite!

[skywalker1]

05:14 PM on 02/11/2011

Why oh why do the repubs always set themselves up... time after time?
Why oh why do they keep touting family values when they themselves don't have any?
And why oh why are they so very careless about their extra curricular activities? They don't even
hide them well.
If anyone has the answers, please enlighten me.

[ArchbishopBenevolent]

05:12 PM on 02/11/2011

I wish him well. May he find health, happiness and fulfillment in his life.
There is only a long and difficult road in marriage to find these things.

[sippewissett]

05:56 PM on 02/13/2011

Save your benevolence for those who deserve it, not those who think there is a different set of laws, permissions and rights for them vs. us.

[MBPolymath]

03:27 PM on 02/11/2011

For the most part I can agree with people who say, "Well, this is a private concern, it shouldn't have anything to do with him professionally. He just got caught being stupid and attempting to cheat on his wife, it should be something that he and his wife deal with." True. I wish his party would allow me to deal with my own private concerns in peace (i.e. how I handle my uterus and who I take into MY bedroom), but he is also a member of a political party which never tires of telling EVERYONE ELSE how to be moral, upstanding, and "God-fearing" (whatever that means). At least he resigned and didn't make a statement alongside his wife about how he was determined to seek guidance and forgiveness through prayer, and then return to berating political opponents for moral relativism.

[highflag]

03:02 PM on 02/11/2011

These types of stories seem to pop-up on a near-daily basis. I find it all just stunning.

I could care less about this guy or his sexual proclivities. Truthfully, the only good Republican is a disgraced Republican, in my book.

But I'll just never get this. I know I'm not any smarter than most folks, and yet so many people insist on committing things to text,twitter,email, recordings and any other devices that they will be humiliated by, should they become public.

Get a clue, folks! If it's digitally preserved, it WILL come back to bite you. How many times will these scandals happen before people begin to realize that simple fact?

[baileywick]

01:59 PM on 02/11/2011

He wasn't there to read his own resignation? So, MAYbe he wasn't going to be there to "service" his connection. NAAWWWW.

[SocratesSiddhartha]

01:38 PM on 02/11/2011

The "Family Values' of the right shining like an oh so bright beacon of filth and degradation...again.

[massjim]

02:08 PM on 02/11/2011

I love the "Family Values" line ... hey, OUR guys can't act as perverted as they want because they don't claim to have any values!

[massjim]

02:15 PM on 02/11/2011

I love the Family Values line ... OUR guys can cheat on their wives because they don't claim to have any values. Sweet.

[SocratesSiddhartha]

09:56 PM on 02/11/2011

So the complete and total hypocrisy and lies of the right is so entrenched, accepted and acceptable that the only recourse is deflection.
It's really quite sad that the only response is to the lies to his wife and family, to his voters, to his lamely attempted date and to you is to say, "but your guys...". Just pathetic, honestly, sincerely, wholly pathetic in the greatest sense of the word.

Pathetic that my post hurt so much, another response came 7 minutes later...essentially admitting that "your" guy is perverted, pantiesbunchmuch.
LOL,Think about how funny that really, truly is...thanks for the laugh mj, good one, sharp like a potato.