A woman, on condition of anonymity, has shared a secretly recorded conversation between herself and Rep. Joe Barton, who earlier today apologized for the explicit image of his genitals being circulated by an anonymous user on Twitter on Tuesday.
The 2015 recording was reviewed by the Washington Post, and the story published less than an hour ago.
Here are excerpts from the conversation, as published by the WP:
“I want your word that this ends,” he said, according to the recording, adding: “I will be completely straight with you. I am ready if I have to, I don’t want to, but I should take all this crap to the Capitol Hill Police and have them launch an investigation. And if I do that, that hurts me potentially big time.”
“Why would you even say that to me?” the woman responded. “The Capitol Hill police? And what would you tell them, sir?”
Said Barton: “I would tell them that I had a three-year undercover relationship with you over the Internet that was heavily sexual and that I had met you twice while married and had sex with you on two different occasions and that I exchanged inappropriate photographs and videos with you that I wouldn’t like to be seen made public, that you still apparently had all of those and were in position to use them in a way that would negatively affect my career. That’s the truth.”
Essentially, the woman sought out other women who had affairs with the senior House representative, and wanted to share the explicit photos with them on social media.
While there is no federal law against that, a 2015 Texas law exists that bans what is called “revenge porn”, a problem that social giant Facebook is trying to deal with in Australia.
+++ + +++
