Katie Hill resigned from Congress after a series of embarrassing photo leaks and salacious details about her private life were published online.
“It is with a broken heart that today I announce my resignation from Congress,” she wrote in a statement on Sunday. “This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but I believe it is the best thing for my constituents, my community, and our country.”
The freshman Democratic Congresswoman made headlines after leaked photos showed her smoking a bong while naked.
London’s Daily Mail published the photos along with scandalous details that Hill, who is married, carried on sexual affairs with male and female Capitol Hill interns.
The U.S. news media immediately defended Hill, calling the photos “revenge porn” and saying she participated in “consensual, non-monogamous” affairs. The media said society should remove the stigma from “consensual non-monogamous” relationships.
Hill, who is seeking a divorce, blamed her husband for leaking the photos and the salacious details about her private life, Newsweek.com reports.
“During the final tumultuous years of my abusive marriage, I became involved in a relationship with someone in my campaign,” she said in a statement.
“Even a consensual relationship with a subordinate is inappropriate, but I still allowed it to happen despite my better judgement. For that, I apologize.”
Capitol Hill police launched a probe into the leaked nude photos after the 32-year-old Congresswoman asked them to investigate if any laws were broken.
Hill’s lawyers sent cease-and-desist letters to the Daily Mail and other blogs that published the photos.
The letter informed the Daily Mail that “The California Penal Code accordingly makes it a criminal offense to ‘intentionally distribute the image of the intimate body part or parts of another identifiable person.'”
The scandalous photos are still live on the Daily Mail’s website.
