Weller Accuses Congressman of Drinks with 21-Year-Old

Weller story gets weirder

Republican congressman Jerry Weller (IL-11) has informed the congressional Ethics Committee that a colleague once invited a 21-year-old intern to his home for drinks. His campaign spokesman, Steven Shearer, said the campaign obtained that information from reporters who phoned to ask about Weller's rumored involvement with a teenage congressional page.

The Morris Daily Herald in Weller's home district reports:

With the Mark Foley page scandal looming over Washington, Shearer said Weller felt it appropriate to inform the committee even though nothing illegal appears to have occurred. Unlike congressional pages, who are high school juniors who help out at the Capitol, interns are college students who work in offices."It seems a little strange that a congressman would do that with a 21-year-old," Shearer said. "In light of everything going on, we were just letting them know."

Given that the age of consent in every country on the planet, including Madagascar, is 21 years of age or younger, it is not clear how Weller's allegation might relate to the Ethics Committee investigation. If Shearer's story is correct, reporters phoned up to ask about a case that would not fall under the committee's purview, somehow confused Jerry Weller with the congressman who invited the adult intern for drinks, and convinced him their information was credible enough to warrant him phoning the Ethics Committee to report something he'd heard third-hand about a non-existent crime.

Does anybody buy this story?