February 10, 2011 02:12 AM UTC

At Least He's Not Your New Ex-Congressman

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• by: Colorado Pols

As The Buffalo News reports:

Rep. Chris Lee, R-Amherst, resigned from Congress this afternoon after an Internet tabloid published a shirtless picture of him that the married congressman had sent to a Maryland woman on Craigslist.

Matthew Harakal, Lee’s spokesman, confirmed that he had resigned as of 5 p.m. today. Harakal said a statement would be forthcoming from Lee’s office…

The woman provided Gawker with a chain of e-mails in which someone using Lee’s Gmail address identified himself as a 39-year-old lobbyist and “a very fit fun classy guy.”

Lee is 46…

The author later identified himself as “divorced.” But according to the Gawker story, the woman then searched for Lee online and found that he was neither divorced nor a lobbyist — and then decided to forward the e-mails to Gawker.

In the Gawker story, a Lee spokesman said the congressman believed his private Gmail account had been hacked, and that Lee had informed his staff of the security breach on Jan. 21. But later in the day Harakal, the congressman’s spokesman, called The Buffalo News to say Lee had resigned.