Massa Quitting Amid Inquiry Blames His Party

Representative Eric J. Massa, a Democrat from upstate New York accused of sexually harassing a male aide, charged in a radio interview over the weekend that Democratic Party leaders were behind an effort to drive him out of office and that the White House chief of staff was the ”son of the devil’s spawn.”
In the interview, on Sunday, Mr. Massa also provided his first detailed account of an interaction he had with a male aide who appears to be at the center of the complaint being investigated by the House ethics committee.
Mr. Massa described an inappropriate exchange with the aide during another staff member’s wedding in January while the two were sitting at a table. He said he grabbed the aide, joked about having sexual relations with him and mussed his hair before getting up and leaving.
”I knew the party was getting to a point where it wasn’t right for me to be there,” he said, referring to his decision to leave the gathering.
Mr. Massa, 50, who is married, said that the staff member had never complained to him directly.
Last week, Mr. Massa, who represents New York’s 29th District, abruptly announced that he would retire from politics after the accusations against him became public. At the time of the announcement, he cited a recurrence of cancer as the reason for his decision, even as he acknowledged that he was guilty of using ”salty” language in the privacy of his home and his office. He said Friday that he would resign.
But in the radio interview, with WKPQ in the Elmira area, Mr. Massa said that Democratic leaders, including the White House, had orchestrated a campaign against him because of his opposition to health care legislation in the House.
”Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill,” he said, ”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 will pass. You connect the dots.”
”The future of the Democratic Party rests on passing this health care bill,” he added. ”They can get anyone to say anything about me concerning anything at all, and in fact they did.”

Read more: (Raymond Hernandez, “House Democrat Quitting Amid Inquiry Blames His Party,” The New York Times, 03/09/10)