Yesterday, Republican Kevin Garn resigned from the Utah House of Representatives after acknowledging that twenty-five years ago, he spent a night in a hot tub with a naked fifteen year old girl. No big deal, right? If every guy with a naked hot tub story from his teen years had to resign from office, then . . . well, actually, I have no idea how many politicians have such steamy--sorry, couldn't help myself--pasts.
But, here's the problem. While the girl was fifteen, Garn was twenty-eight. Also, she worked for him. And was his former Sunday school pupil. So, what does any good public servant, embarrassed and remorseful over such an incident, do? Pay the girl off, of course! So, in 2002, in the midst of a failed run for Congress, Garn paid the by then thirty-year-old woman $150,000 for her silence. Except now she seems to have reneged on the deal.
In his resignation speech on Thursday--after the woman had gone to the press--Garn admitted, "now that this issue is coming up again," he realizes that perhaps paying her off was a mistake. You think? Or maybe it was the whole naked-in-a-hot-tub-with-your-current-employee-former-Sunday-school-student-still-well-under-eighteen thing that might have been the mistake?
Garn told his colleagues that he "expect[s] to suffer public humiliation and embarrassment," but he had to come clean [ed. now that it was clear that he was no longer going to be able buy the woman's silence]. He could not "allow one foolish mistake to continue to shadow [his] life." Ummm . . . Representative Garn? I'm no math whiz, but I'm thinking that with the hot-tubbing, and the bribing, and the lying, that's gotta be, what, at least two foolish mistakes, no? Or maybe it was just the getting caught that you were referring to?
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