First there was the apparent surveillance video kiss. Then came the purported text message confession.
Gawker has obtained a series of text messages it says were sent Monday night by Rep. Vance McAllister (R-LA), in which the congressman purportedly admits that he “messed up” and said he was having a “rotten” day.
McAllister, for those who have missed it, is the freshman Republican House member who was caught on an office surveillance camera in late December kissing a female staff member. A local paper in Louisiana, The Ouachita Citizen, got ahold of the video, and published it online on Monday. McAllister, who is married with five children and who ran for office last year as a conservative Christian, issued a statement Monday afternoon saying he was asking for forgiveness “from God, my wife, my kids, my staff, and my constituents who elected me to serve.”
On Monday night, a person emailed Gawker and said that he or she had found McAllister’s cell phone number online, and started texting back and forth with him. Gawker published screen shots of the texts.
“Hey bro,” Gawker’s source wrote. “How’s your day goin.”
“Rotten,” McAllister apparently replied.
“Why? Sup?” the source asked.
“I messed up,” McAllister wrote.
As the Gawker source asked more questions, McAllister apparently became suspicious, and began asking for the identity of the texter.
“I don’t have the number saved in my phone,” McAllister apparently wrote
After getting the screen shots of the text message conversation, Gawker’s Adam Weinstein texted the number given for McAllister, and got a response. McAllister said that his chief of staff would call him. According to Weinstein, he then received a call from Adam Terry, McAllister’s chief of staff, who did not directly confirm the text message conversation, but who said the congressman’s staff was dealing with a large amount of media attention.
A spokesperson for McAllister did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TPM on Tuesday.
