The Hill News

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus called on Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) to resign on Tuesday.

Priebus became the first major public figure to call on Weiner, who confessed on Monday to sending a series of lewd text messages to women in recent years, to leave office.

"Congressman Weiner's actions and deception are unacceptable and he should resign," Priebus said in a statement. "We do not need an investigation to know he lied and acted inappropriately, we need a resignation."

Most Republicans have been relatively silent in their reaction to Weiner's confession; House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office has declined to comment on the matter.

But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the head of Democrats' campaign arm, have called for an official ethics investigation, primarily to see whether official government resources were used to transmit the messages.
There's some precedent for instances like this; Rep. Chris Lee (R-N.Y.) resigned earlier this year after sending a woman he'd met on Craigslist pictures of himself shirtless. But there's no real official guidelines that dictate that a member of Congress would have to resign in a scandal like this.

"Either Leader Pelosi and DNC Chair Wasserman Schultz believe members of Congress are held to a different set of standards or they believe these actions demand his resignation," Priebus said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) got in on the action, too, on Tuesday, pressuring Democratic recipients of donations from Weiner to return that campaign cash.