He denied ever having met, or having had a physical relationship with any of the women. On June 16, 2011, Weiner announced his intention to resign from Congress. On May 27, 2011, using his public Twitter account, Weiner sent a link to a photo on yfrog of his erect penis concealed by boxer briefs to Gennette Cordova, a 21-year-old female college student from Seattle, Washington, who was "following" his posts on the social media website.
Though the link was quickly removed from Weiner's Twitter account, screen shots of Weiner’s original message and of the photo were captured by a user identified as "Dan Wolfe" on Twitter and subsequently sent to conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart who published them on his BigJournalism website the following day. On June 1, Weiner gave a series of interviews in which he denied sending the photo and suggested that someone, perhaps a political opponent, had hacked into his accounts and published the photo. Weiner also said he could not say "with certitude" that the photo was not of him. He suggested that the image might be doctored, saying, "maybe it did start being a photo of mine and now looks something different or maybe it is from another account". He did not ask the FBI or U.S. Capitol Police to investigate the incident but said he had retained a private security firm to look into this matter because he felt it was a prank, not a crime.
Liberal bloggers then accused Wolfe and Brietbart of planting the photo and message to defame Weiner; however, Wolfe and Breitbart were later vindicated in their claims by Weiner's admission. Evidence later revealed that a group of self-described conservatives had been monitoring Weiner's Twitter communications with women for at least three months. Two false identities of underage girls had been created by unknown parties to solicit communication with Weiner and the women he was contacting, one of whom Weiner followed until he was tipped off that it was a false account. During an appearance on Sirius XM radio on June 8, 2011, Breitbart showed hosts Opie and Anthony a photograph of what he claimed to be Weiner's nude genitalia. One of the cameras in the room caught the cell phone's display, and the hosts subsequently leaked the photo by publishing it on Twitter. Breitbart stated that the photo was published without his permission, and later told KFI radio, "These people have admitted that they did this surreptitiously and illicitly and they lied in the process saying that they didn't even have a camera in the place". Weiner's spokesperson issued the following statement: "As Representative Weiner said on Monday when he took responsibility for his actions, he has sent explicit photos."
News media also reported the identity of other Weiner's social media contacts, Lisa Weiss, a 40-year-old blackjack dealer in Las Vegas and 24-year-old porn actress Ginger Lee who had exchanged sexually oriented messages with Weiner. On June 15, Ginger Lee held a press conference during which she said that when she requested advice from Weiner on how to respond to the media, he had advised her on June 2 that if they both stayed quiet the scandal would die down. Traci Nobles, a cheerleading coach who had exchanged messages with Weiner, appeared on the Today Show and also released a book about the affair.
