GOP senator admits link to escort service
Should the Senator resign for using an escort service?
Politico-Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) acknowledged Monday night that his number appears on telephone records of the alleged D.C. Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, and issued an apology.
“This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible,” Vitter said in a statement released by his office
“Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling,” he added. “Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there — with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way.”
I guess this is just the first one. There will be more to come I guess.
When you read the entire article, his wife comes off as a total idiot.
FYI
FROM USA TODAY
In ‘D.C. madam case’, justice is pursued unevenly
What’s the real crime here?
That’s the question that bugs me about the case of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the “D.C. Madam” who U.S. prosecutors say ran a prostitution ring in the nation’s capital from her home in California.
(Photo — Palfrey: Only one to be charged. / Getty Images)
Last week, Palfrey — who served 18 months in prison for her 1991 conviction of operating a prostitution business in California — offered to give journalists phone records of the escort service she said she operated in Washington.
This isn’t the first time she has dangled this list before journalists. Earlier this year, Palfrey gave a portion of these records to ABC News, whose investigative reporter Brian Ross hyped their content in advance of a 20/20 broadcast. But when the show aired, Ross linked just one prominent man to Palfrey’s business: Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias, who ran the Bush administration’s global war on AIDS.
Though no one with a higher profile was named in that broadcast, it did assert that Palfrey’s list of clients included “NASA officials, at least five military officers, including the commander of an Air Force intelligence squadron.”
But since the show aired, prosecutors have twice attempted to block further distribution of Palfrey’s phone records to journalists, saying it’s an effort to intimidate potential witnesses. She contends that their release will cause some of the men who used her escort service to speak up in her defense — to say that what she ran was a sexual fantasy business, not a call-girl operation.
A worthy case?
I wonder whether this case is worth the time and money federal prosecutors are putting into it — and, if it is, whether they are casting a wide enough net.
I am no advocate of prostitution. But I think sex between consenting, mentally competent adults that is conducted in private shouldn’t be regulated by government. To shut down her escort service, federal prosecutors have tiptoed around the issue of consensual sex by indicting Palfrey on racketeering and money laundering charges — offenses that stem directly from the prostitution ring she allegedly ran.
Her indictment in March came as the Justice Department was reeling from accusations that it had fired eight U.S. attorneys because they did not do the bidding of GOP powerbrokers who sought to influence legal decisions. It also came at the hands of a Justice Department that five years earlier used blue drapes to cover two partially nude works of art in the Great Hall of its headquarters.
Narrow justice
Such heavy-handed and prudish behavior is in step with a Justice Department that would put Palfrey in its cross hairs. But why didn’t federal prosecutors go after the thousands of male clients they say her business serviced? That it didn’t suggests that the indictment of Palfrey is more of a crime than the ones of which she’s accused.
Money laundering and racketeering are offenses that are extensions of another crime. The “other crime” in Palfrey’s case is prostitution. But while the names of up to 15,000 male customers are said to be in her phone records, only Palfrey has been charged.
Why aren’t some of the men who purchased the services she sold being dragged before the bar of justice? Sure, this is an age-old question, but President Bush promised us a higher level of morality when he entered the White House. By going after Palfrey and not any of her clients, his Justice Department’s morality cops appear to be employing the same old double standard.
Why? Is it because, as Ross has said, other prominent men in Washington might have been her customers?
Do they want to spare these unnamed Johns the humiliation that caused one of the women employed by Palfrey to commit suicide after she was arrested on prostitution charges by police in Maryland?
Zeroing in on Palfrey for allegedly running a sex-for-sale business while letting her male clients go free hardly seems like justice to me.
Hmm, that article raises some good points. Perhaps Vitter should be charged with solicitation of prostitution. She wouldn’t have had a business if it weren’t for people like Vitter.
A DC politician soliciting sex…say it ain’t so!
He probably ran on a “family values” platform with a nice outdoor picture of his wife and daughters in a field next to a tree.
While a state senator, he lead the legislative effort to file ethics charges against Governor Edwards for his gambling activities.
This will be the first of a long list…with any luck we’ll see a few resign.
Bart
I agree with you!
Whenever someone who gets caught starts talking about stuff like “asking for God’s forgiveness”, my mind shuts down.
These public servants, pastors, celebrities…they’re not someone in an AA meeting…they didn’t resign, they were caught, and expecting me to believe that religion was important in the meantime is weak. How is anyone to know whether they’re telling the truth or not? There’s no way that we can.
It’s only for the benefit of those who will assume that what they’re hearing is the truth, and that’s why they say it. It’s the same thing as Patrick Kennedy crashing his car while high on drugs, or a politician who is busted for drunk driving…they always talk about what they’ve done to atone prior to being caught, but to me it’s useless. Because they weren’t about to face their problem unless they got caught.
With the prostitution it’s even dumber, because (to me at least) it’s less about addiction and more about feeling untouchable. I’m not a public person at all, and if I’d been to a local underground brothel, I’d be stressed out big time that it would come back to haunt me.
A SENATOR??? Damn…how can a senator expect it to never come back to haunt him?
“I think Livingston’s stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess,” he said. [Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12/20/98]
AL,
Isn’t that the God’s Truth?
MD
FYI
Hustler says it revealed senator’s link to escort service
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Larry Flynt’s Hustler magazine claimed credit for exposing Sen. David Vitter’s connection to the “DC Madam” Tuesday, saying Vitter confessed after a journalist reported finding the senator’s number in the escort service’s phone records.
“Larry Flynt’s ongoing investigation into the dirty secrets of prominent elected officials has exposed another hypocrite,” Hustler said.
Vitter, R-Louisiana, admitted Monday that his telephone number turned up in the phone records of an escort service run by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, though he did not say he had sex with a prostitute. The records date from before he won his Senate seat in 2004.
“This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible,” Vitter said in a statement given to reporters Monday night. “Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and from my wife in confession and marriage counseling.”
Vitter, 46, represented New Orleans suburbs in the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2004, when he ran for the Senate. He is married and has four children.
Vitter was one of the top backers of a failed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage and serves as the Southern regional chairman of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign. In his Monday statement, he offered his “deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way.”
Palfrey was indicted in March on charges of money laundering and racketeering stemming from her business, Pamela Martin & Associates, which prosecutors allege was involved in prostitution. Palfrey has denied the charges, saying she operated a legitimate escort service.
In an effort to raise money for her legal defense, Palfrey tried to sell a telephone list containing names of more than 10,000 clients. A judge blocked her from selling the information, but she provided some of the documents to media outlets.
Dan Moldea, an investigative journalist working with Palfrey on a book, told CNN that he discovered Vitter’s number in Palfrey’s phone records and passed the information to Flynt.
“I had no idea who he was prior to then, although I’m sure he was a client and he’s stated accordingly, but I don’t remember this man,” Palfrey said.
Hustler said an editor at the magazine called Vitter’s office for a response Monday evening, spurring Vitter to issue his statement to The Associated Press.
Paul Colford, a spokesman for the wire service, said Vitter’s statement “came into the AP’s New Orleans bureau without prior contact from the AP.”
Flynt took out a full-page ad in The Washington Post in June to offer $1 million for “documented evidence of illicit sexual or intimate relations with a congressman or senator.”
Flynt launched a similar campaign in 1998 in an effort to counter the drive to impeach then-President Bill Clinton over allegations that he had lied about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Moldea worked with Flynt in that effort as well.
Hustler’s search led to the resignation of House Speaker-designate Robert Livingston — whose congressional seat Vitter won the next year.
“Flynt’s team is currently continuing its investigation into improprieties by other high-ranking elected officials,” Hustler announced.
Vitter is the first lawmaker known to be linked to Palfrey’s business, though State Department official Randall Tobias — who promoted abstinence education as head of the Bush administration’s effort to curb the spread of AIDS — resigned in May after confirming he patronized Palfrey’s business.
Campaigning in New Hampshire on Tuesday, Giuliani said Vitter’s apparent connection to the Palfrey case was a “personal issue.” But he admitted, “Some people disappoint you.”
Vitter’s disclosure follows the June resignation of Giuliani’s South Carolina campaign chairman, State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel, who was indicted on cocaine charges. Giuliani told reporters Tuesday “it’s too early to tell” if Vitter will leave his campaign, and said he should not be judged on the problems of some people associated with his campaign or with his administration as New York mayor
The sanctity of marriage speech by David Vitter — what a hypocrite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7uPa5Jr2qA