Former Rep. Anthony Weiner is starting to plan a political comeback, filing paperwork with the city’s Campaign Finance Board to run for a City Council seat on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Weiner went to federal prison in connection to a sexting scandal involving a minor, but that’s not derailing him from considering a return to the political arena.
“I mean, I’m thinking about it. I’m wrestling with it — I don’t know,” Weiner said during a November episode on the 77 WABC radio program he hosts.
But on Tuesday, he made it semi-official, filing to run for a City Council seat in Manhattan.
“You’ve now seen a few elected officials, who were in office and then were not in office now making a comeback at high levels of politics,” Jake Dilemani, a Democratic consultant, said. “You probably know him as a sort of brash, tough talking, tell it like it is politician.”
Weiner told NY1 in an email that although he’s made no final decision, he’s exploring running for District 2 on the Lower East Side, currently held by term-limited Councilwoman Carlina Rivera.
It would mean a return to the City Council for Weiner, who served in the chamber from 1992 to 1999, before winning a congressional seat covering Brooklyn and Queens from 1999 to 2011.
There, he was a rising star known for pro-Israel ideals, support of 9/11 victims and clashing with Republicans — until scandal torpedoed his career.
“The fact that Anthony Weiner went to jail is a problem. I mean, he went to jail for something related. I mean, some people find it that way to abuse of a young woman,” Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist, said.
Weiner resigned in 2011 after it was revealed he sent sexually explicit content online to women.
William O’Reilly helped run Republican Bob Turner’s campaign for the open seat.
“Weiner is always compelled to run in politics, it’s what he loves, it comes naturally to them but what he did, the addiction and the underaged texting or sexting, that’s prohibitive,” he told NY1.
In 2013, Weiner’s unsuccessful mayoral primary run was muddied by stories of new online sexual activity.
Then in 2016, the FBI announced it was probing Weiner’s lewd contact with a 15-year-old girl. Shining a spotlight on his then-wife: top Hillary Clinton aide, Huma Abedin.
“Anthony Weiner’s antics with the sexting to underaged girls opened up an investigation into the Clinton campaign again just a week before the election and a lot of Democrats still believe that, that elected President [Donald] Trump,” O’Reilly said.
Weiner pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nearly two years in prison. Released in 2019, he was required to register as a sex offender.
Now, some say: if Democrats believe in redemption, they’ll give him a shot.
“We have taken a position that people who have gone to jail, ex-offenders, should, in fact, not be barred from serving again, or serving for the first time. We have perfect examples: Eddie Gibbs in the legislature,” Sheinkopf said.
Other Democrats told NY1 that Weiner’s story comes at a time when other controversial politicians have launched comeback bids, like President-elect Donald Trump and perhaps former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
