Rep. Katie Hill said she will become a revenge porn campaigner, after nude photos prompted her to resign from Congress

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Rep. Katie Hill said she will become a revenge porn campaigner, after nude photos prompted her to resign from Congress

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Rep. Katie Hill

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Katie Hill in a message to supporters Monday said she would campaign for victims of revenge porn, after a conservative blog published a nude picture of her and detailed affairs.

  • Rep. Katie Hill, in a Monday video message to supporters, said her career after Congress will be to campaign for victims of revenge porn - the unauthorized publication of explicit images.
  • Hill announced her resignation on Sunday, after conservative blog RedState and DailyMail.com published claims she had had relationships with two staffers, and pictures of her nude.
  • "Some people call this electronic assault, digital exploitation. Others call it revenge porn. As a victim of it, I call it one of the worst things we can do to our sisters and our daughters," said Hill. 
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Rep. Katie Hill said Monday that she will campaign for those impacted by so-called "revenge porn," which she cited for the reason for her resignation as a Congresswoman.

Hill said this weekend that she would step down after nude photographs of her were published alongside claims that she had relationships with members of her political staff, which sparked a formal investigation. 

"I will fight to ensure that no one else has to live through what I just experienced," she said in the video message Monday.

"Some people call this electronic assault, digital exploitation. Others call it revenge porn. As a victim of it, I call it one of the worst things we can do to our sisters and our daughters."

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"I will not allow my experience to scare off other young women or girls from running for office. For the sake of all of us we cannot let that happen."

Hill on Sunday announced her resignation. Conservative blog RedState and news website DailyMail.com earlier in October published pictures of her nude, as well as details of a polyamorous relationship she was involved in with her estranged husband and a female campaign staffer during her run for Congress.

They also aired allegations that she had an affair with a male staffer after her election.

Hill has admitted to an "inappropriate" relationship with the female staffer, but has denied having a relationship with the male staffer - which would have been against congressional rules banning relationships between lawmakers and their staff. 

Revenge porn - publishing sexually explicit pictures without permission - has been illegal in California since 2013.

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In a letter last week, her legal team threatened legal action against the Mail, claiming that its publication of the images breached the revenge porn laws.

In her resignation statement Sunday, she said she was weighing her legal options over the publication of the images. 

Last week, the House ethics committee announced it was launching an investigation into reports alleging that Hill had had an affair with the male staffer. 

In her video Monday, she said she had made the decision to resign so "my supporters, my family, my staff and our community will no longer be subjected to the pain inflicted by my abusive husband and the brutality of hateful political operatives." 

She has alleged that her husband, with whom she is undergoing an acrimonious divorce, played a role in the information that forced her resignation being made public. 

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In a statement last week, Hill said he had referred RedState to Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Police over the publication of the images. 

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