Spilling the sordid secrets of the Senate

Hart of darkness

How do they while away the hours in Congress in the long gaps between passing shutdown bills? Cockburn caused something of a stir this time last week by revealing that a staffer for Senator Ben Cardin was spending his free time indulging in gay sex acts in the Hart Senate Office Building. He left the august duty of blurring and posting the offending video to Henry Rodgers and his comrades at the Daily Caller later that Friday. The clip revealed that the staffer, later unmasked as Aidan Maese-Czeropski, was having sex with his partner, German grad student Georg Gauger, at the desk formerly used by late senator Dianne Feinstein. 

The internet was aflame all weekend — and the follow-ups came thick and fast. The Hill’s Al Weaver caught up with Cardin Monday, who described himself as “angry” and “disappointed” by the debacle. The Free Beacon dug deep and worked out that the act had taken place in the same room where then-senator Joe Biden had said the N-word during a confirmation hearing in 1985 (yes, he was quoting). The staffer was, naturally, fired — and is the subject of a probe from the Capitol Police. On Wednesday Semafor told the world about more congressional sex tapes, this time on the House side. One features a man masturbating at a desk, “identifiable by standard Capitol House furniture and carpeting.” Another shows “two men engaged in a sex act in an office setting.” Is no one working in that building? (Don’t answer that Hill staffers, it’s a trick question.) 

Perhaps most amusing was the NBC News headline, “Senate staffer alleged by conservative outlets to have had sex in a hearing room is no longer employed.” 

Maybe this is a mark of Cockburn’s pedantry, but he takes issue with the characterization of The Spectator as “conservative”: that word doesn’t appear anywhere on the About page for good reason. But really: “Alleged?” Maese-Czeropski’s face is in the video! His since-nuked Twitter was replete with other nude images also containing his face! And the ousted staffer was posting on Instagram about his deeds after Cockburn and the Caller’s reports. How disappointing that NBC feels the need to cast aspersions on his meticulous sourcing: Cockburn would be happy to liaise with the relevant editor to help them expunge that “alleged” and confront what’s clearly a widespread issue in the corridors of power. 

Then yesterday from the MailOnline came the revelation that Jill Biden’s press secretary Michael LaRosa was “forced out” of the White House after a 2022 incident in which he twice “tried to take a date he’d just met up to his room on a secure floor while overseas in a hotel.” The date was “male staffer from another country’s delegation,” per the Mail. (As ever, Cockburn will vigorously investigate such indiscretions: email cockburn@thespectator.com.) 

Cockburn takes his name from the British admiral who sacked and burned the White House and Capitol during the War of 1812. At this rate, the janitorial staff might be contemplating the cleansing power of flame in order to restore Washington to a state of hygiene suitable for its aged incumbents. We don’t want any nasty slips in the new year.

Congressman claims his colleagues are ‘compromised’

Elsewhere in our very normal city, Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett has been doing the rounds this week discussing how his colleagues are too “compromised” to ask meaningful questions about dead pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein and his level of influence. Appearing on, of all places, Benny Johnson’s podcast, the Republican characterized how efforts to blackmail members went down: “You’re visiting, you’re out of the country or out of town or you’re in a motel or at a bar in DC and, whatever you’re into — women, men, whatever — comes up and they’re very attractive and they’re laughing at your jokes. And you’re buying them a drink. Next thing you know, you’re in the motel room with them naked. 

“And next thing you know, you know you’re about to make a key vote. And what happens? Some well-dressed person comes out and whispers in your ear, ‘Hey, man, there’s tapes out on you,’ or, ‘Were you in a motel room or whatever with whoever?’ And then you’re like, ‘Oh,’ and [they] said, ‘You really ought not be voting for this thing.’”

Accused fraudster accuses Ben Smith of idea theft

“Did Ben Smith sabotage OZY only to plunder its ideas for Semafor?” begins a Business Insider piece from yesterday. “That’s the question at the heart of a lawsuit filed Thursday morning in Brooklyn Federal Court.” Never mind that the answer to that question is almost certainly “no.” 

“Ben Smith did not just take the proverbial page out of the OZY playbook: he took the entire playbook,” according to the suit, filed against Smith, BuzzFeed and Semafor by OZY founder Carlos Watson, who is the subject of federal fraud charges in New York. 

What is the “OZY playbook” that Smith, formerly of BuzzFeed News, Politico and the New York Times, is said to have cribbed from? “Premium TV and digital video shows… podcasts, daily subscription newsletters, a unique awards program… and a flagship events business.” 

You may be thinking, “but Cockburn: doesn’t every digital media business, including the New York Times, Politico and BuzzFeed, do video, podcasts, newsletters, awards and events? Didn’t Semafor dive into that space at around the same time as Puck, Punchbowl and the Free Press, none of whom had access to OZY’s so-called ‘secret sauce,’ yet all of whom ended up deploying the same multimedia approach?” That’s now apparently a question for the Eastern District of New York. 

Watson is demanding a jury trial for the “willful taking of another man’s dream.” Given the allegations of impersonating YouTube executives that form part of the DoJ’s indictment of him, Cockburn looks forward to seeing which man ends up appearing in court…

Merry Christmas from Cockburn

Cockburn has had a banner year in his gossip column. In addition to scooping the sordid sexual secrets of the Senate, readers of this email were the first to hear about:

• Abby Grossberg’s $12 million settlement with her former employer Fox News
• Queen Camilla’s giggles over her stepson Harry’s ‘romp’ in a field
• The new Wall Street Journal editor’s exasperation with the work rate of her American employees
• How self-styled Twitter/X ‘alpha male’ Nick Adams doesn’t write his own tweets
• Fired Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez’s new career in retail (she’s back in local news now)
• What Andrew Tate’s Romanian compound is like on the inside

Your dogged columnist will be back in the new year, after a well-earned festive rest. Merry Christmas to all our subscribers — if you need a last-minute present, you can give an annual gift subscription to The Spectator World for $69.

See you in 2024 — and thanks for all the tips. Keep them coming!

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