Former Rep. Anthony Weiner spent more than $43,000 in congressional campaign funds to investigate his own bogus claims that his Twitter account was hacked two years ago, a New York Daily News report found Sunday.
For a week and a half after his profile supposedly was hacked, the embattled Democrat maintained his innocence and paid T&M Protection Services with campaign donors’ funds to track down the people who supposedly posted a racy photo of the then-congressman online on May 27, 2011.
“They’ll be looking into whether someone had my password,” he told CNN at the time.
Mr. Weiner ultimately paid T&M $43,100 from his campaign fund. T&M officials declined to answer questions about what work they did for Mr. Weiner and what was discovered, the Daily News reported. Records also show his campaign paid law firm BakerHostetler $93,350 for “legal services” between January 2010 and December 2012, the Daily News said.
“It’s wrong on just so many levels,” said Melanie Sloan, director of the nonpartisan watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “He’s wasting people’s hard-earned dollars on a wild goose chase and that’s outrageous,” she said. “It’s just another lie he told people. He knew all along who did it.”
Mr. Weiner, a Democrat who is running for New York City mayor, never reimbursed donors for the costs of the phony investigation, the Daily News reported.
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• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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