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New York congressman says he is sorry for his conduct but insists he did not break any law and won’t resign A painfully embarrassing week for the New York Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner was brought to an excruciating denouement when he admitted that he had sent sexually suggestive photographs of himself over the internet, confessed to lying to cover it up but said that he was not resigning. In a half-hour press conference during which he at several times was fighting back tears, Weiner made a total and grovelling apology. After days in which he had at first claimed the photographs were hacked out of his computer and sent without his knowledge, he said he took responsibility for his “dumb” actions. “To be clear, the picture was of me, and I sent it. I’m deeply sorry for the pain this has caused my wife, and our family, my constituents, my friends, my supporters and my staff,” he said. Weiner said several times that he would not stand down from the New York district that he has represented for 13 years, saying he had broken no rules or laws. But the wheels of the Democratic party machine were quickly cranking into action against him. Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the minority Democratic group in the House of Representatives, called for an ethics committee investigation to investigate him – a move that will pile on the pressure on Weiner who was until recently seen as a rising star of the party. The congressman’s confession came after it became clear that his story could not hold. A few hours before he spoke, the conservative website that had first broken the story, BigGovernment.com, had come out with a new set of photographs showing Weiner in semi-clad postures that the site said had been sent to an unnamed woman last month. Andrew Breitbart, the founder of the website, hijacked Weiner’s press conference, taking to the stage before the congressman appeared to berate him and the media for accepting his lie that the photographs had been hacked. Weiner said that he had had inappropriate internet communications with six women, some of which had happened after he had married Huma Abedin, a close aide to the secretary of state Hillary Clinton. But he insisted the relationships had never been physical and he had never met any of the individuals involved. The first communication to be uncovered was a photograph of a man in his underwear sent from his Twitter feed to a 21-year-old woman. He said he had sent it as a joke, then tried to cover it up by claiming his account had been hacked. “I lied because I was ashamed at what I had done, and I didn’t want to get caught.” United States New York US politics Democrats Twitter Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk