Anthony Weiner , the 48-year-old New York Democratic politician at the heart of a serial sexting scandal, is now also accused of spending over $43,000 in campaign contributions to look for a 2011 Twitter hacker that he knew didn’t exist.
That’s the claim coming from Greg Smith in Sunday’s New York Daily News.
As most followers of political scandals already know, in May 2011, Weiner tweeted a link to a naughty photograph of himself to a Twitter follower. Oops.
In the first days of the scandal, he tried to claim that his Twitter account had been hacked .
And now the Daily News said that they have campaign finance records saying that he paid over $29,000 from the Friends of Weiner to a private investigations service called T&M Protection.
Is that like O.J. Simpson hiring a private investigator to find the real killer?
MSN Now noted that the $43,000 in campaign cash could be the easiest money T&M ever earned. Before they would get a chance to do much of anything, Weiner confessed in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Anthony Weiner ended up resigning from the U.S. House of Representatives shortly thereafter.
Now he wants to run for the mayor of New York City. As all the world already knows, a new sexting scandal has erupted — and his campaign manager has already resigned in disgust.
It seems to be an open question whether or not Weiner has broken any laws other than the laws of good taste by sexting the naughty pictures of private parts we all wish he’d kept private.
But now the public has to wonder if there’s a question of the mis-use of funds.
The numbers do seem to change and shift in the Daily News report, which can hold out some hope that they’re just wrong. The title says the campaign paid $45,000, and the documents they show in their photo say $29,832.
But it looks bad either way.
A Daily Intelligencer report from February had already claimed Weiner paid T&M over $13,000 for the Twitter hacker search.
How about some reaction from Twitter itself to the rather believable rumor?
With who money?? “@msnNOW: Weiner paid $43,000 to find Twitter hacker after tweeting pics himself http://t.co/qZAOm1msP0 ”
— Marcus (@Marcus_JH) July 28, 2013
Anthony Weiner math: Mistake + Deny + Blame Hacker = Resignation + Mea Culpa = Redemption + Run For Mayor + Mistake + Mea Culpa = Book Deal
— TJ Sullivan (@TJSullivanLA) July 26, 2013
Has Anthony Weiner blamed @AndrewBreitbart of being the hacker yet? #weinergate
— John R. Eakin (@JREakin) July 23, 2013
I can’t say for sure that thousands in campaign funds went to search for a Twitter hacker that Weiner knew didn’t exist. But I’ll admit that I have some doubts about Anthony Weiner’s honesty.