Former Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) continued to make public allegations against former colleague and current Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) this week, claiming that he'd once referred to a staffer as a "fag."
Speaking on David Pakman's radio program on Monday, Ney -- who resigned from Congress in 2006 after being implicated in the notorious Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and later spent 11 months in jail -- recounted an incident that he included in his recently published book, "Sideswiped: Lessons Learned Courtesy of the Hit Men of Capitol Hill."
"We were over in Jordan ... and there was a certain staffer and we were sitting there ... and we were complimenting this staffer of Boehner's on what a good job he did, and John had a glass of wine and he had a cigarette and he was looking over and he goes, 'Yeah, he's a good guy. I think he's a fag,'" Ney recalled.
"It really shocked me, the way he said it I guess is what did it the most," Ney said.
Ney's depiction of Boehner in the book is unfavorable to say the least. In one passage, he claims that Boehner was "a chain-smoking, relentless wine drinker who was more interested in the high life -- golf, women, cigarettes, fun, and alcohol." Ney also claims that Boehner lied to him with promises of a job and legal defense before encouraging him to resign. Ney stepped aside, but received none of the alleged support from Boehner, he claims.
Boehner has aggressively denied all of the criticisms in Ney's book, calling them "baseless and false" claims coming from a "disgraced congressman" trying to sell books.
Ney has meanwhile maintained that he doesn't "personally dislike" Boehner, arguing that he's instead trying to shine a light on the kind of person Boehner is.
"The John Boehner I knew then is the John Boehner now that's making decisions on sequestration, fiscal cliffs, you know, budgets, and I think people have a right to know the flavor and the background of the number three in line for president of the United States," Ney told Pakman.
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