Texas Rep. Joe Barton, a divorcee, has been having some fun with a woman he had a consensual relationship with. And apparently, after a rather bad breakup between the two, the Representative from Texas is learning to never send nude photos of yourself, the hard way.
The woman has leaked the photos and they’ve been making several rounds around the internet.
He’s threatening her with a lawsuit as this is technically “revenge porn” and of course, someone had to call it a threat (from him) instead of what it is…
The 68-year-old Republican from Ennis says each relationship was consensual and has since ended. He says, “I am sorry I did not use better judgment during those days. I am sorry that I let my constituents down.”
I was going to include a cropped version of one of the photos for your viewing pleasure but… nah. Y’all don’t need to sweat that.
As reported by Scott Greer for The Daily Caller:
But The Washington Post framed that threat as some sinister show of power in its report on the matter Wednesday night and treated the jilted lover as some heroic whistleblower of Barton’s “secret sex life.”
That “secret sex life” was that Barton, a single man at the time, was flirty with other women.
Truly one of the great criminal conspiracies of our time.
However, the Post’s article makes it seem like this is the real wrongdoing here instead of the revenge porn, which the paper fleetingly describes before getting to the reporters’ main purpose of shaming Barton.
According to the Post, Barton’s leaker — who is granted anonymity by the sympathetic reporters in spite of her possible crime — didn’t have any intention to use the embarrassing photos against the congressman.
Instead, she explained her motive this way. “It’s not normal for a member of Congress who runs on a GOP platform of family values and conservatism to be scouring the Internet looking for a new sexual liaison.”
WaPo made sure to give credence to this incredulous claim by detailing Barton’s voting record and political positions in the piece.
It would be easy to come away from the article thinking the woman did a noble service but did not commit a real crime. As the Post points out, “so-called ‘revenge porn’” isn’t a federal crime, and the woman said she had no intention of retaliating.
She just didn’t like how he two-timed her, and she wanted to point out the hypocrisy of his politics
