BRONX, N.Y. -- Embattled mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner slammed a report published in The New York Observer on Friday that alleged he had conducted an affair with a former, and much younger, staffer in his office.
"It was a story entirely without sources, entirely about gossip around the office," Weiner said. "It had nothing for me to really respond to except to say that I've never had any inappropriate relationship with a staffer. That's the same thing the staffer said."
Weiner was speaking at an event in Soundview Park in the Bronx to discuss the city's recent stop and frisk ruling and the proposal to outfit NYPD officers with lapel cameras in order to record their actions.
Yet once again, his personal life became the subject of reporters' questions.
On Friday, The Observer reported that Weiner had a relationship with an "on-again-off-again congressional and campaign aide" before he was married to his wife, Huma Abedin.
The story was thinly sourced with unidentified sources.
"I've been around journalism and politics a long time," Weiner said of the article. "I've never seen a story that was 100 percent unsourced, 100 percent based on rumor in the middle of a campaign."
When asked generally if he had an "appropriate" affair "with another person," Weiner impatiently answered, "Yes I dare say it is a fact that before I was married I did have relationships with people."
Weiner dodged a direct question whether he had a relationship, inappropriate or otherwise, with the specific staffer mentioned in The Observer.
"I'm not going to get into a roll call because I don't know where it ends," Weiner said. "Unless we do a survey of everyone who they dated before they were married, I'm not going to have a comment."
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