Chris Lee resigns after Craigslist personals scandal

Upstate New York GOP Congressman Christopher Lee is reported to have sent shirtless pictures of himself to a female Craigslist advertiser, claiming he’s "a very fit fun classy guy," and a "divorced" "lobbyist" who added, "I promise not to disappoint."

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.)

Gawker reports:

The woman says she cut off contact when she searched for Lee online and concluded he’d lied about his age and occupation. Then she forwarded us the correspondence.

Yesterday, we reached out to Rep. Lee, whose support for "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" and vote to reject federal abortion funding suggests a certain comfort with publicly scrutinizing others’ sex lives.

A spokesman for the Congressman confirmed that the email address belonged to Lee, and that he had deleted his Facebook account because our initial inquiry had him fretting about "privacy."

Lee’s office had an immediate explanation, claiming his account had been hacked.

Lee’s spokesman eventually announced that the Congressman believed he’d been hacked, and provided an email he claims Lee sent to his staff about the security breach on January 21.

That could, theoretically, be true. But the evidence suggests otherwise. The emails were sent more than a week before the alleged hack. The shirtless photo—which, according to metadata contained in the picture, was taken in Washington, D.C.—-was taken with a Blackberry, the same mobile device that Lee uses, which means the hacker would have also accessed the photos on Lee’s phone. (And he’d still be the kind of guy who takes cellphone pictures of himself topless.)

• Reaction To Chris Lee's Resignation Video

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