The same day new pictures of Rep. Anthony Weiner surfaced online, the Democratic congressman called a press conference to take “full responsibility for his actions.”

On Monday afternoon, Weiner changed course after a week of denying that he sent a picture of himself in his underpants to a young woman in Seattle. He admitted that he did send the picture and lied about it to his family, his constituents, and to the media.

“This was a very dumb thing to do … but it wasn’t any plan to be hurtful to my wife or a plan to be deceitful to you,” he said.

The congressman from New York said he’s not going to resign and that he believes he didn’t do anything that breaks his oath of office.

A tearful Weiner explained that he meant to send the underpants picture to a woman in Seattle and accidentally blasted it across Twitter. Embarrassed, he quickly deleted the tweet. Last week, the congressman called the incident a prank and said he’d been hacked.

Weiner said he’s carried on communications with six women he’s met online—mainly on Facebook, he said—many of them before he was married. Some of those communications have continued since he was married, although he’s said he’s never met the women in person.

The congressman said he’s been honest with his wife about the communications but didn’t tell her until this morning that he was responsible for the underpants picture.

His wife was not at the press conference.

“This is a deep weakness I have demonstrated, and I apologize,” he said.



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