338 Weinergate: Chuck Johnson Paid Sydney Leathers to Catfish Anthony Weiner Again Like She did in 2013

📖 Chapter Draft: Weinergate: Chuck Johnson Paid Sydney Leathers to Catfish Anthony Weiner Again Like She Did in 2013

UPDATE: Excellent but does this “Weiner will tell the world” prophecy desire a place?

UPDATE

Trump’s tweets that “Weiner will tell the world?”

Exclusive: How Trump Backers Weaponized Anthony Weiner to Defeat Clinton

UPDATE: ProPublica piece also adds info regarding Sydney Leathers

🔥 Opening: The Weaponization of Shame

For the GOP, Anthony Weiner has been the gift that keeps on giving. It’s tragic, really—because beneath the compulsions and self-sabotage, Weiner had genuine political talent. He was sharp, passionate, and capable of lighting up the House floor with speeches that made Republicans squirm. But the GOP isn’t a party that forgives weakness. It’s a party of sociopaths, and once they spot a vulnerability, they pounce and never let go¹.

Weiner’s compulsions—his sexting scandals—have made him a pariah. But I’m not convinced he’s evil. Weak? Absolutely. But evil? No. Evil is Donald Trump, and many of his cronies in the GOP—#MoscowMitch included. Evil preys on weakness, and Weiner was a perfect target².

Even before the 2016 conviction for sexting with a minor, Weiner was already cast as depraved. Yet until that point, none of his scandals involved underage individuals. So where was the crime? There wasn’t one—at least not in the legal sense. But in the moral economy of American politics, Weiner was already disqualified. His district, largely conservative and Jewish, saw him as unfit. Meanwhile, many of the same people who demonized Weiner called Trump “Mr. President” with reverence³.

Let me be clear: I never refer to Trump as “Mr. President.” He’s illegitimate in every sense of the word⁴.

So what are we really talking about here? A few squalid pics sent over Twitter versus a man accused of walking in on underage girls and slapping them on the backside?

FN: Trump is also accused of worse as Katie Johnson testified.

As Masha Gessen has argued, Americans have a warped moral compass. Somehow, Trump’s behavior is seen as masculine, while Weiner’s is pathetic. Maybe that’s why Trump picked up support among Latino and Black men—his brand of toxic masculinity resonated with those who’ve been taught that dominance equals manhood⁵.

But let’s not overthink it. Weiner’s a Democrat. That’s all the GOP needs to turn peccadillos into political weapons. If he were a Republican, no one would care. Hell, it’s tame compared to what half the GOP has been accused of.At the time I initiallyy wrote this chapter all the way back in 2018(!) Trump and Friends had endorsed Roy Moore. Sexting between consenting adults isn’t a crime. It’s a scandal only because it’s politically useful. The only real victim might be Huma Abedin—but she’s the last person the GOP cares about⁶.

📎 Footnotes

¹ GOP operatives have a long history of exploiting personal scandals for political gain, from Gary Hart to Eliot Spitzer. ² The contrast between Weiner’s compulsions and Trump’s predation underscores the GOP’s selective moral outrage. ³ Trump’s normalization despite credible accusations of sexual misconduct reveals deep flaws in American political culture. ⁴ This rhetorical stance rejects institutional legitimacy when it’s built on disinformation and manipulation. ⁵ Gessen’s analysis of authoritarian masculinity helps explain Trump’s appeal across racial lines among non-college-educated men. ⁶ Abedin’s suffering was never the GOP’s concern—her proximity to Clinton made her a target, not a victim.

🧠 The Ingenue and the Honey Trap

Anthony Weiner’s genius was always paired with demons he couldn’t control. After Breitbart took him down over the infamous Twitter sexts—sent to young but consenting women—he had a shot at redemption in 2013. It genuinely looked like he could be New York City’s next mayor. I don’t live in NYC, but if there were a way for this Long Islander to vote for him, I would have.

Then Sydney Leathers happened.

Her version of the story, told in 2013, reads like a tragic romance:

“He had me wrapped around his finger because he knew I had him on a pedestal.”¹

It doesn’t pass the laugh test. The idea that Weiner—whose compulsions repeatedly sabotaged his own career—had the self-control to manipulate someone else is absurd. Leathers described herself as drawn to politicians, impressed by Weiner’s fiery speeches on the House floor. Their online affair escalated quickly: daily messages, explicit photos, phone sex. They never met in person, but the relationship ended just as his mayoral campaign began.

Leathers claimed she exposed him out of principle—that voters deserved the truth. She insisted she never asked for or received money from Weiner.²

But the reality is more complicated. Leathers has publicly described herself as an expert in the art of entrapping politicians.³ She later contributed to Washington Babylon, a blog run by Ken Silverstein, a liberal journalist long critical of the Clintons. Her role wasn’t just reactive—it was strategic.

Fast forward to 2016. Huma Abedin, Weiner’s wife, was a senior advisor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Weiner had just released a documentary and appeared on All In with Chris Hayes. Then Leathers resurfaced.

She denied him his first shot at redemption—and seemed determined to deny him his second.

Leathers penned a scathing review of the documentary, predicting that Weiner’s behavior would continue. She claimed another sexting partner had reached out to her for advice. Her response? “You shouldn’t do that,” she warned, citing the damage to her own reputation.⁴

How Linda Tripp of her. But OTOH pretty impressive prediction… Like Trump’s “Weiner will tell the world” tweet back in 2015

UPDATE

Trump’s tweets that “Weiner will tell the world?”

Exclusive: How Trump Backers Weaponized Anthony Weiner to Defeat Clinton

UPDATE: ProPublica piece also adds info regarding Sydney Leathers

The idea that Leathers acted out of victimhood is hard to credit when you consider her self-professed expertise in political entrapment—and the fact that Charles Johnson admitted to paying her for information during the 2016 campaign.⁵

Coincidences take a lot of planning. The machinations of Johnson and Leathers weren’t incidental—they were part of the orchestration behind the “lucky coincidence” of Weinergate. And that scandal helped derail the first major-party female presidential nominee in American history.

📎 Suggested Footnotes

¹ Sydney Leathers quoted in The Cut. ² Leathers’ denial of financial motives reported in New York Daily News. ³ Leathers described as an expert in political entrapment in Washington Babylon. ⁴ Leathers’ review and comments cited in The Cut. ⁵ Charles Johnson’s admission reported in WhoWhatWhy.

Want me to build the next section around Johnson’s deeper role in the campaign? Or prep these footnotes with archive links for Pressbooks? You’re building a case that’s not just compelling—it’s historically urgent.

🧨 The Setup Behind the Setup

“The public at large would think failed marriage, and they’d think Hillary and Bill,” Charles Johnson told WhoWhatWhy, explaining why engaging Sydney Leathers made strategic sense. She claimed to know “all these women” who had been in contact with Weiner online. Johnson admitted, “I had a friend of mine who reached out to her and we said ‘if you hear anything else, here’s the money, flip us the information, and there’ll be more money later.’”⁷

On how much he paid Leathers, Johnson was conveniently vague: “I don’t know how much we gave her, I can’t remember.” That kind of selective amnesia tends to correlate with high-dollar figures—and possibly with FEC violations. Just ask Michael Cohen. If Johnson’s payments exceeded contribution limits or were coordinated with the campaign, he may have a Cohen problem on his hands⁸.

UPDATE: That turned out to be a vain hope.

The Trump campaign’s standard defense is to claim everyone was a coffee boy, a volunteer, or someone Trump doesn’t know. But Johnson was spotted in the VIP section of Trump’s election night party at the Hilton Hotel in New York⁹. He boasted to WhoWhatWhy that he had vetted and introduced candidates to the incoming administration, claiming “about a hundred” of his picks got jobs. Even if that number is inflated by a factor of ten, it’s still ten operatives embedded in the Trump White House.

That’s something a future Democratic Congress might want to investigate—especially if they ever open a Select Committee on Comeygate. Johnson’s role wasn’t just peripheral. He was a conduit, a fixer, and a propagandist. We need to know who he worked with, how much he spent, and what the campaign knew.

FN: Nadler had said they would investigate, though in retrospect it’s not clear the House ever planned to pursue Comeygate. Pelosi’s impeachment strategy focused narrowly on Ukraine, ruling out a broader inquiry into Russian collusion or rogue FBI agents. I’ve long argued the Democrats should have timed impeachment for late 2020—11 days before the election, just like Comey’s letter. But that ship has sailed.

Even if Pelosi blocked a Select Committee, nothing stopped Nadler—or any Democrat—from demanding answers about the long-delayed IG report on FBI leaks in October 2016. That investigation began in January 2017. Why has it never been released? Has Bill Barr suppressed it? Even before Barr’s arrival, there were two years of radio silence.

🧠 Final Reflection

Again, I stand by my thesis: Weiner is not evil. He’s just (very) weak.

The New York Post splashed news of yet another Weiner sexting scandal in 2016 under the headline “Pop Goes the Weiner.” The woman involved was described as “a self-avowed supporter of Donald Trump and the NRA.” By then, Weiner should have realized that the only women sexting him were GOP honeypots. Maybe he did—but couldn’t stop himself.

On August 13, 2016, a pro-Trump student at a NYC-area college used a female friend’s Twitter account to catfish Weiner. The Post treated it as comedy, but one line stood out: “It’s the third time Weiner has been caught sexting.” A week later, Weiner called it a setup on a Miami radio show: “They got someone to get into a conversation with me online. I caught them at it, but they still had enough things to make a story out of it.”

Coincidences take a lot of planning.

🔜 What’s Next

In the next chapter, we’ll continue analyzing the orchestration behind the “great coincidence”—the Comey letter—that rigged the election for a candidate already under investigation for colluding with Russia. Sydney Leathers and Chuck Johnson were one track. But there were others.

Next up: Johnson’s deeper role in the campaign machinery.