World’s Shortest Sex Scandal

Filed in National by on February 9, 2011

Today Gawker broke a story about Republican Representative Christopher Lee (NY-26). Lee answered a Craigslist ad from a woman looking for a date. He represented himself as a divorced lobbyist.

Rep. Christopher Lee is a married Republican congressman serving the 26th District of New York. But when he trolls Craigslist’s “Women Seeking Men” forum, he’s Christopher Lee, “divorced” “lobbyist” and “fit fun classy guy.” One object of his flirtation told us her story.

On the morning of Friday, January 14, a single 34-year-old woman put an ad in the “Women for Men” section of Craigslist personals. “Will someone prove to me not all CL men look like toads?” she asked, inviting “financially & emotionally secure” men to reply.

That afternoon, a man named Christopher Lee replied. He used a Gmail account that Rep. Christopher Lee has since confirmed to be his own. (It’s the same Gmail account that was associated with Lee’s personal Facebook account, which the Congressman deleted when we started asking questions.)

By email, Lee identified himself as a 39-year-old divorced lobbyist and sent a PG picture to the woman from the ad. (In fact, Lee is married and has one son with his wife. He’s also 46.)

NY-26 has an interesting history. It is the former district of Tom Reynolds, a Republican leader that helped cover up the Mark Foley scandal. Reynolds came very, very close to losing his job to crazy gazillionaire Jack Davis. Luckily for Reynolds, Davis was the world’s worst candidate and a big snowstorm allowed Reynolds to pretend he was useful. Lee took over the seat the next election when Reynolds retired.

The Lee story started taking off this afternoon. Lee announced his resignation, starting “immediately,” only 3 hours after the story broke. Twitter didnt even have time to come up with a funny nickname for him. I just wonder if there’s something else about to drop or if Lee has a history of cheating so his wife demanded he resign. Either way, there’s going to be a special election for the seat (R+6 district) and to make things extra fun there are rumors that Carl Paladino is being urged to run.

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Comments (18)

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  1. pandora says:

    Do these people understand how technology works? Why do they insist on putting their pictures out there?

  2. MJ says:

    Mwahhhhhaaaaaaa

  3. By the way, I was a resident of NY-26 for about 5 years.

  4. Delaware Dem says:

    I actually think this guy should not have resigned, but I suppose, if he campaigned as a teabagging moralist, the hypocrisy was too great for him

  5. I just love that pic he took. He’s in pretty good shape but he’s simultaneously flexing, sucking in his gut and operating the camera. I just read on Twitter that journos have been pursuing stories about Lee for a while but didn’t have enough to go with a story. I bet there’s multiple women.

  6. Delaware Dem says:

    And is it a sex scandal if Lee never actually had sex? LOL.

  7. MJ says:

    DD – Republicans don’t have sex.

  8. Capt.Willard says:

    Geez, what’s the matter with these idiots?
    Couldn’t he have just taken his lap-top to a secluded room, found his fetish online and knocked the snot out of it in private?

  9. Delaware Dem says:

    Thanks for that wonderfully descriptive comment Captain.

  10. Capt.Willard says:

    Who was HHS SEC/GEN who was crucified for advocating teaching masturbation?
    Man, I thought that was a good idea.
    Who’s to know how many unnecessary sexual interludes and subsequent surprise pregnancies would be avoided if young men were taught that it’s OK to flog your dummy.

  11. Newshound says:

    This is a very ‘tame’ scandal by today’s standards (thus far). I mean, I guess after Mr. Clinton (he certainly ‘rose’ to the occassion with intern extrordinaire Monica), even the most arcane scandals require immediate resignation.

    Even the Gawker blogger who wrote the story thought that the photos and e-mails were ‘tame’ compared to other recent daliences. I do give him the Stupidest Congressman Alive award, however, since he used his ‘official’ congressional e-mail account. Duh!

    More news at 11 p.m.

  12. MJ says:

    NH – he used a gmail account, not his House email account (which is why the woman did a google search to find out who he was). It would have been a sure tipoff if he had used his house.gov email.

  13. Geezer says:

    “This is a very ‘tame’ scandal by today’s standards”

    I wonder if his wife is going to agree with that.

  14. heragain says:

    I explained to my kids, THIS is why most of these guys buy it. When you pay a hooker, the assumption is, neither of you want to make the papers. When you chat up a grown woman for free, you can’t very well cry foul if she takes the basic precaution of googling you.

    He’s stupid, vain, AND a middle-aged male politician. What were the odds? @@

    I still know people there. I wonder if any of them would be interested in running for Congress.

  15. Capt.Willard says:

    @ Newshound-WOW,I never realized rose and rose could be considered as the same thing.
    It’s amazing when you think about it.
    The poets were right.
    Specifically Gertrude Stein: “A rose is a rose is a rose.”

  16. Geezer says:

    “I wonder if any of them would be interested in running for Congress.”

    Why not? I understand it’s a good way to meet women.

  17. Delaware Dem says:

    Well, apparently not if Lee resorted to Craigslist (which is my favorite part of this story).