Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY) fights back against news reports he roughed up his wife who then called the police for help. He kinda sorta denies the events happened, 
but not really. You can see the details in this report. But the essence of it is that while he says that “the report is false … there was no domestic violence”, he doesn’t really say the events as reported didn’t take place.
This afternoon Sweeney spoke publicly, with his wife standing silently at his side: “I love my wife, I love my children, I love my family, and I will not allow them to be dragged in this just because my opponent has the thirst and desire to have power.”
Sweeney clearly wants to give the impression that the document which was the basis of reports in the Albany Times-Union and the New York Daily News — a page from a police blotter — was a fabrication, and that his Democratic opponent, Kirsten Gillibrand, is behind it.
But in a statement released earlier in the day by Sweeney’s wife it’s clear that something happened on the night in question. “The evening in question was a very difficult time for our family Real life has real problems. Like every family, we have personal challenges that we must overcome.”
The whole thing amounts to one really fraught non-denial denial. Did the events in question happen on that night? No comment. Did Mrs. Sweeney call 911? No comment. Was there a physical confrontation? No comment.
But the story that ran in the papers? Terrible, terrible totally false double not true stuff. A shameful report concocted by my opponent.
Shameless, I tell you!
Did I mention shameful?
