South Carolina Gov. Sanford Admits Being ‘Unfaithful’ to His Wife, After Secret Argentina Trip
June 24th, 2009 sargel18What a idiot.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, after pulling off an increasingly bizarre vanishing act this week, reappeared Wednesday to admit he was having an affair that involved secret visits with his mistress in Argentina.
Sanford’s staff initially told reporters he had left town Thursday to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but the governor returned Wednesday morning on a flight from Argentina.
“I’ve let down a lot of people. That’s the bottom line,” Sanford said. “I’ve been unfaithful to my wife.”
E-mails obtained by The State, a South Carolina newspaper, capture deeply personal exchanges between the governor and the woman, whom the newspaper called only by her first name, Maria.
“My heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul,” Sanford wrote in one of the e-mails, dated last summer.
Click here to read more excerpts from the e-mails.
The newspaper said a McClatchey correspondent reached Sanford’s mistress, but she declined to be interviewed.
Sanford’s wife, Jenny, who apparently had known about the affair for several months, had asked him to leave home two weeks ago and to stop talking to her and their children. In a written statement, she said the couple needed a trial separation, but that her husband had since “earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.”
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