As the crotch-shot scandal exploded around him, panicking Rep. Anthony Weiner coached a porn star pal to lie about their sexually-charged online relationship, even offering professional PR advice, it was reported Tuesday.
Weiner, who yesterday admitted to a slew of steamy online affairs with at least six women, told porn actress Ginger Lee to deny that they’d been sending each other sexual e-mails — and acknowledged the inability of his own flacks to quiet the growing scandal.
“Do you need to talk to a professional PR type person to give u advice?,” Weiner emailed Lee on June 2, according to the gossip website TMZ.com. “I can have someone on my team call. [Yeah, my team is doing great. Ugh].”
Lee got a private Twitter message from the kinky congressman and publicly returned the favor, gushing over her “Mr. Sexy Congressman” in a series of blog posts.
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“I want to have sexual relations with Anthony Weiner,” Ginger Lee wrote in a March 1 post. On March 13, she boasted about receiving a private message from the randy rep.
On June 1, Weiner reportedly instructed Lee on the best way to stonewall reporters who were contacting her with questions, TMZ said.
“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.’,” TMZ quotes Weiner as telling Lee.
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The next day, Weiner sent Lee this statement to hand out to the press, according to TMZ: “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 repeatedly denied sending a picture of his jockey-covered crotch to a Seattle college student until yesterday, but said while he was “deeply ashamed” he would not resign.