The Revenge Porn Debate Reaches Washington

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A revenge porn controversy has come to Washington.

Perhaps you’ve been following the case of Representative Katie Hill. Ms. Hill, a 32-year-old Democratic congresswoman from California, was a star of the 2018 midterm elections, branding herself “the most millennial candidate ever” even before she flipped her suburban Los Angeles district to blue.

Yesterday, she became the first female member of Congress to announce her resignation in the #MeToo era, after being accused of sexual relations with her staffers. But her resignation highlights another generational issue: the new kinds of internet exposure that lawyers and activists say could have an impact on a whole class of rising politicians.

The specifics of her story are complicated. Allegations that Ms. Hill and her husband, Kenny Heslep, were involved in a three-way relationship with a female campaign aide first circulated on the conservative news site RedState. Her husband, amid a contentious divorce proceeding, has also charged that Ms. Hill was having an affair with her legislative director, an accusation also reported by RedState.

The House Ethics Committee soon opened an investigation into Ms. Hill, making a young woman the first representative to be investigated under a new rule passed last year prohibiting sexual relations between members of Congress and staff members.

Yet, the broad outlines of this tale are very familiar. From Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart’s lap during the 1988 presidential campaign, politicians have long cheated on their spouses — frequently with their employees — and gotten caught. The figure of the tight-lipped wife standing by her politician husband as he explains his bad behavior is so commonplace that it even spawned the plotline for a whole television series.

Ms. Hill’s story, however, has a thoroughly modern twist. The affair was revealed when RedState published text messages and nude photos of Ms. Hill in intimate poses. The photos, she said in a statement, were circulated by “an abusive husband who seems determined to try to humiliate me.”

That’s led her supporters to argue that Ms. Hill is not a perpetrator but a victim of both an abusive relationship and “revenge porn,” which is illegal under California law. It’s an issue that female celebrities and news anchors and many nonfamous people have faced; now, it’s come to politics.

“I fear the chilling effect the attack on Katie Hill will have on other ambitious daring women and members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community thinking about careers in politics,” said Carrie Goldberg, one of the most prominent lawyers tackling nonconsensual pornography cases. “Though the idea of sharing nudes may cause some of our septuagenarian politicians to clutch their pearls, we are entering a new generation where the majority of our up and coming young politicians and professionals will have shared secrets and pictures electronically.”

In a political era where apologies seem to be in short supply, the photos may have made the difference, at least for Ms. Hill’s congressional career. In a video posted today, Ms. Hill said she planned to fight revenge porn, calling it “one of the worst things that we can do to our sisters and daughters.”

“I know that as long as I am in Congress, we’ll live fearful of what might come next and how much it will hurt,” she wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.

Mr. Heslep could not be reached for comment, and Ms. Hill’s legislative director did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

A little more than 100 miles south of Ms. Hill’s congressional district sits Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California.

He, too, is accused of having “intimate relationships” with his staffers, but he’s facing criminal charges for stealing campaign funds to pay for his dates with them.

The federal indictment is “fake news” and a “rigged witch hunt,” Mr. Hunter says. He is running for re-election.


My political costume this Halloween? An all-white outfit, with black bars across it. I call it … “Redacted.”

I’m sure you’re far more clever. Send us photos of your best political costumes and you could be featured in an upcoming issue of the newsletter. Bonus points if they involve pets or children.

Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. (As always, please include your name and where you live, which we may publish.)


National politics reporter Jennifer Medina joined us in Washington today for a series of speeches by Democratic presidential candidates at a national conference hosted by J Street, a liberal lobbying group that describes itself as “pro-Israel and pro-peace.” Here’s her dispatch:

There was no doubt — this was Senator Bernie Sanders’s crowd.

Thousands of progressive Jewish activists gave Mr. Sanders a thunderous standing ovation the moment he walked in. And Mr. Sanders spoke in unusually personal terms about his own Jewishness.

“I’m very proud to be Jewish and look forward to being the first Jewish president,” Mr. Sanders told the crowd, adding that Jews “have suffered for century after century.” He also talked about his time on an Israeli kibbutz and about his father, who immigrated to America from Poland to escape anti-Semitism.

“If there is any people on earth who understands the danger of racism and white nationalism, it is certainly the Jewish people,” he said.

Mr. Sanders also offered a stark example of how much the conversation about Israel has changed in the Trump era. Like several other Democratic candidates, he said he was willing to withhold American aid from Israel if the government expanded settlements or annexed more land in the West Bank.

The crowd was most enthusiastic when the candidates spoke about the rights of Palestinians, and Mr. Sanders did not leave them disappointed, harshly criticizing the Israeli government.

“It is not anti-Semitism to say that the Netanyahu government has been racist — that is a fact,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The audience applauded loudly.

Read more of Jennifer’s reporting from the J Street conference here.


President Trump’s legacy will last for decades in part thanks to his former White House counsel Don McGahn, who ushered a record number of judges to lifetime appointments.



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