Rep. Anthony Weiner won’t deny lewd photo is of himself
By Rachel Rose Hartman
After spending days trying to brush aside reporter inquiries about a lewd photo that was sent Friday from his Twitter account, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday prompted further speculation about the incident by failing to deny that the photo was of himself.
"I didn't send the picture out," Weiner told MSNBC's Luke Russert in a televised interview.
"That's not a picture of you?"
"You know, I can't say with certitude. My system was hacked. Pictures can be manipulated. Pictures can be dropped in and inserted," Weiner replied. You can watch video of the exchange above.
Russert later suggested the congressman likely would remember taking a photo of himself in his underwear, to which Weiner responded "one of the reasons we've asked an Internet security firm to come in is to see maybe if something was manipulated, maybe something was dropped in."
Russert followed up by asking if the congressman will flat-out deny the picture is of himself. "I will say that we're trying to figure out exactly what happened here. Whether a photograph was manipulated that was found in my account, whether something was dropped in to my account."
In an interview later Wednesday, CNN's Wolf Blitzer suggested to the congressman that he should be able to recognize his own underwear. Weiner responded: "Photographs can be manipulated, doctored. I want to be sure we know. It certainly doesn't look familiar to me but I don't want to say with certitude to you something that I don't know to be the certain truth."
When Blitzer asked the lawmaker if he has ever taken a picture "like this" of himself, Weiner didn't provide an outright denial. "I can tell you this. There are... I have photographs. I don't know what photographs are out there in the world of me. I don't know what things have been manipulated and doctored. And we're going to try to find out what happened."
Throughout both interviews Wednesday, Weiner repeated his claim that he was the victim of a prank when someone "hacked" into his Twitter account and sent a photo over the social networking site to a female college student.
Weiner has been avoiding answering questions about the incident. He noted Wednesday that he addressed the matter over the weekend through his office; he also grew angry and animated in a Tuesday press conference where reporters pressed him for additional details. At that gathering, reporters asked the lawmaker if the photo was of Weiner, if he followed the woman who received the message on Twitter, or knew her in any other context. Reporters also asked Weiner why he didn't call for a federal investigation--through the Capitol police or the FBI, for example.
During the videotaped exchange with reporters Weiner responded to one questioner by calling him a "jackass." (On a side note, Weiner is known for his explosive behavior. Past videos of him shouting on the Senate floor and sparring on air with colleagues have gone viral.)
Weiner did not respond at the time but confirmed Wednesday he has asked a private security firm to examine the incident.
"It was a prank. I'm not sure I want to put national federal resources into trying to figure out who posted a picture on Weiner's website of ... whatever," the congressman said on MSNBC. "I'm not really sure it rises, no pun intended, to that level. This is not a national security matter. ... The things I do want to work on in Congress here are being interrupted by this, which I think was the intention of the person that did this."
Weiner added that the situation has gotten so "crazy" that individuals who follow him on Twitter are now being asked personal questions. "This story has become a little bit out of control," the lawmaker said.
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