NEW YORK CITY—Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) has filed to launch a candidacy for a seat on the New York City Council next year, to make a potential political comeback following a series of scandals over sexting and a criminal conviction for obscene online contact with a minor.
Weiner, 60, told the Associated Press that he is “still exploring” whether to run.
District 2 encompasses a broad swath of some of Lower Manhattan’s most iconic neighborhoods, such as Gramercy, the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, the East Village, Flatiron, Union Square, and Murray Hill.
Carlina Rivera, a progressive Democrat with a focus on abortion access and transgender rights, currently represents the district on the City Council.
After numerous investigations into sexual improprieties and a criminal conviction that sent him to prison for 21 months, Weiner has tried, so far without success, to make a political comeback.
Weiner launched a run for mayor of New York in 2013 and failed to get past fifth place in the primaries. He had previously run for the same office, without success, in 2005.
In 2011, Weiner engaged in sexting with social media users, causing a scandal that led to his announcement on June 16, 2011, that he would resign from the U.S. House of Representatives.
Not long after his entry into the 2013 mayoral race, reports emerged that Weiner had used an alias to send sexually explicit photos to a 22-year-old woman. Another scandal erupted in August 2016 around reports that Weiner had sent a woman an image of himself lying in bed with his son.
His then-wife Huma Abedin, a longtime close aide to former Secretary of State and two-time presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, filed for divorce in 2017. The two later agreed to negotiate their separation privately.
In September 2016, allegations that Weiner had sent obscene content to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina prompted officials to seize Weiner’s laptop. After a discovery of certain emails on the laptop, then-FBI Director James Comey reopened an investigation into then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s improper use of a private email server for sensitive official matters.
Prior to the reopening of the investigation, many polls had heavily favored Clinton. To this day, many people, including Clinton herself, believe that Weiner’s improprieties helped hand Donald Trump the presidency in November 2016.
In 2017, Weiner received a 21-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to having sent obscene content to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. He served his sentence and was released from prison in 2019, and ordered to register as a sex offender.
