Rep. Katie Hill resigns because of a 'misogynistic culture'
Media says she was 'living her best life'; reaction from Fox Nation host Tammy Bruce.
After several appearances on cable news since her resignation from Congress last month, former Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., spoke out at length for the first time on Friday night about the alleged inappropriate relationships she had with subordinates.
In October, intimate texts and photographs of the congresswoman emerged as she reportedly had engaged in a "throuple," or a three-person couple, with her estranged husband and a female campaign staffer, and was accused of having an affair with her congressional financial director, which prompted an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.
Hill, who is openly bisexual, admitted to having relations with the female campaign staffer but denied having an affair with her congressional staffer. She officially resigned from her seat in early November.
WASHINGTON POST HIT FOR ASKING IF KATIE HILL SAGA WOULD HAVE HAPPENED TO A MAN
During an interview on MSNBC, Hill said she does not regret her resignation from Congress.
"I think it was the right thing to do for a number of different reasons, one of which is that there was no way for me to continue working as well as I could with the amount of distraction that it was going to continue to provide," Hill said. "This was fodder for right-wing operatives... I knew I was going to be, basically, bait for some kind of distraction against what was really important."
"I was supposed to be the freshman representative to leadership. How could I be the freshman representative to a lot of these people who were in tough seats when they were going to have to go home and answer questions about who is this person that you were working with?" she asked.
Hill repeated her denial about having an affair with a congressional staffer and claimed the House Ethics probe was launched "because of a claim made by my estranged husband" and not from any report.
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"I have a real problem with this whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. I don't think some random person making accusations should launch an ethics investigation because its incredibly invasive," Hill explained. "It's something that's a big, big deal for not just for you but for your staff as well, that there should be some kind of an actual basis for it that a vengeful ex of some kind or just a random political operative can't be the one who instigates an investigation like that."
The 32-year-old Californian claimed that her revenge porn controversy was the "first example" of it being used against a public figure, "especially a political figure," with the images published by the mainstream media.
However, MSNBC host Chris Hayes failed to mention that similar scandals previously occurred to two male lawmakers.
In 2017, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, announced he would not seek reelection after a nude photo and lewd text messages he had sent to women amid his divorce had surfaced. And in 2011, Rep. Chris Lee, R-N.Y., resigned after flirtatious emails and a bare-chested selfie emerged from an extramarital affair that spawned from Craigslist.