Democrat Representative Katie Hill won’t have to worry about that probe by the House Ethics Committee anymore.
Under investigation for allegations that she was involved with a weaker subordinate in her office, Hill resigned yesterday. Last week, RedState and the Daily Mail published nude photos of the congresswoman and the story about Hill’s threesome with a campaign staffer and Hill’s husband.
In a letter to her constituents in California’s 25th district, the bisexual Hill wrote that the decision breaks her heart. She is exploring legal action against those who peddled what the media are calling “revenge porn.”
Bye-Bye
Hill’s exit from Congress began on October 10 when RedState divulged allegations posted to her estranged husband’s Facebook page. The husband, Kenny Heslep, accused Hill of a relationship with her legislative director.
Eight days later, RedState published nude photos of Hill, which featured the congresswoman sitting behind the young campaign staffer and brushing her hair. The photos also showed the pair kissing. The website published details, including text messages, about Hill and Heslep’s threesome with the woman, a decade younger than Hill.
The Daily Mail followed with the now-famous photo of a naked Hill with a bong and a strange tattoo in her pubic area. The Mail identified the tattoo as a “Nazi-era” Iron Cross, which Hill and her attorney disputed in a letter demanding that the photos be removed from the Mail’s website.
On Sunday, Hill resigned. “It is with a broken heart today that I announce my resignation from Congress,” she wrote, but “this is what needs to happen so that the good people who supported me will no longer be subjected to the pain inflicted by my abusive husband and the brutality of hateful political operatives who seem to happily provide a platform to a monster who is driving a smear campaign built around cyber exploitation.”
Hill claimed that the nude-bong photo and other photos were “weaponized” against her and “an appalling invasion of my privacy. It’s also illegal and we are currently pursuing all of our available legal options.”
Amusingly, Hill wrote that she “can no longer allow my community, family, friends, staff, supporters, and especially the children who look up to me as a role model to suffer this unprecedented brand of cruelty.”
Hill was unconcerned about the “unprecedented brand of cruelty” she helped inflict on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when she joined the mob that smeared him as a rapist. Hill called him a “serial predator.”
Revenge Porn
Nor did Hill explain why children should view an adult who takes nude photos, smokes pot, and commits adultery in a threesome as “role model,” but in any event the media are helping her spin the scandal as “revenge porn,” rather than call it what it is: sexual perversion.
The effort to spin the episode to make Hill out to be a victim began quickly after the photos and long story about Hill’s sex shenangians.
Writing at Medium’s new Gen publication, Jill Filipovic complained that Hill’s transgressions “shouldn’t overshadow the crime committed against her.”
That crime? Exposing photo evidence of Hill using her office to prey upon subordinates.
Apparently, questions about Hill’s unethical activities with her weaker subordinates “pale in comparison to what has been done to Hill” because “revenge porn” is usually used against women, which proves “we still live in a world where sexually active women are branded as sluts and shamed … for their sexuality — which is exactly what’s happening to Hill.”
Filipovic complained that “women routinely say they are afraid to run for office because they don’t want their lives picked apart.” Predictably pointing to President Trump’s marital history, Filipovic complained that “women don’t have that option. A woman who cheats isn’t a cad; she’s a whore. And a woman photographed nude or in a sexual encounter? Even though we’re all naked under our clothes and most human beings have sex, she is less moral, less trustworthy and less decent.”
No one was concerned that Hill was naked under her clothes or that Hill had sex, but anyway, at least one Republican also jumped on the spin train: Representative Matt Gaetz, the pro-Trump Republican who represents Florida’s 1st district, jumped to Hill’s defense. “This is just absurd,” he tweeted of the ethics probe. “The only person who seems to have a gripe is @RepKatieHill’s soon-to-be ex.”
“Who among us would look perfect if every ex leaked every photo/text?” he continued. “Katie isn’t being investigated by Ethics or maligned because she hurt anyone — it is because she is different.”
Different is one word for it.
Photo of Katie Hill: Gage Skidmore
