U.S. Congressman: Obama's Chief of Staff would sell his mother to get a vote (audio)
Eric Massa: Rahm Emanuel "would sell his own mother" for votes
Rep. Eric Massa is hammering his Democratic Party's leaders as he resigns, heading out the door under a cloud of allegations he sexually harassed a male staffer.
Massa, who maintains he’s leaving Congress because of cancer, took to local radio station WKPQ Sunday and ripped into his party repeatedly, accusing leaders of forcing him out because he opposes health care reform.
Massa was one of 39 Democrats who voted against an earlier House version of the health care bill in November. He says Democratic leaders will "stop at nothing" to advance the health care overhaul.
On Sunday, he had special scorn for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who helped get Massa elected.
“Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn,” he said. “He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.”
Listern to audio file on youtube below (video section)
Massa alleges that Emanuel ripped into him a number of times over votes, including in the House shower.
“I am showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me,” said Massa.
Hoyer — who said he heard of the harassment charges and told Massa to go to the ethics panel — Massa calls a liar.
“Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, never, not once,” Massa said. “Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly before findings of fact. Ever.”
Massa says the real reason for the ethics complaint is to push him out because he voted against health care reform.
“There’s a reason that this has all happened, frankly one that I had not realized,” he said. “Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill, and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill, and now they’ve gotten rid of me and it’ll pass. You connect the dots.”
As for where the allegation came from, Massa says it stemmed from a New Year’s wedding, where a staffer made a drunken comment after the congressman danced with the bridesmaid that perhaps he should be chasing her.
“I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, ‘Well, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you,’ and then tossled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where it wasn’t right for me to be there,” he said.
Massa also got into all sorts of other things, and we’re not sure we’ve ever heard a congressman talk this much about naked men — especially one who’s quitting under cloud of allegations about sexual harassment.
But Massa spent an awful lot of time recalling circumstances in his life with unclothed men, including the angry Rahm encounter, sailors sliding naked down chutes, and catching his shipmate in a rather private act and slapping him on the leg.
NY Daily News
Comments