I Didn't Hijack Anthony Weiner's Press Conference, It Was Just a Strange Coincidence, Says Andrew Breitbart

1:46 PM PDT 6/7/2011 by Paul Bond

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The blogger tells Matt Lauer that he felt "awful" watching the congressman's mea culpa and that there are few scenarios that would prompt him to release X-rated photos in his possession.

Andrew Breitbart, the blogger who revealed Anthony Weiner’s sex scandal, said it was a big coincidence that he happened to be at the same New York hotel as Weiner on Monday, allowing for him to hijack the congressman’s press conference for about five minutes.

•Anthony Weiner

Breitbart told the story Tuesday to Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show on Tuesday.

VIDEO: Andrew Breitbart Hijacks Rep. Anthony Weiner's Cable News Briefing

"Thirty years I’ve been watching news conferences – that may have been the most bizarre one I have ever seen,” Lauer told Breitbart.

Breitbart said he had just checked in to his hotel room and decided to join the conference. (He clarified later that his hotel was five blocks from the Sheraton where the press conference took place).

"Nobody noticed me for the first five minutes,” he said, then 50 reporters surrounded him asking questions. Reporters, in fact, asked him to take the stage so that they would hear him better, he said.

"I had no idea they cut to live television," he said. Lauer asked: “For those who tuned in and thought, 'Here’s Andrew Breitbart hijacking this press conference for his own purposes,’ you would respond?"

"The camera will show you,” Breitbart said. “People there will attest that they asked me to go up."

Nevertheless, the “hijack” narrative is sticking, even with Breitbart's allies. On his radio show Tuesday, for example, Rush Limbaugh said, “Weiner did his best to lay this off on Breitbart, (so) Breitbart just hijacked his press conference. You gotta love that!"

Lauer also asked if Breitbart had any intention of releasing the X-rated photo of Weiner he says he has in his possession. Perhaps, Breitbart said, “if Anthony Weiner decides to make this a jihad against me."

“I guarantee you,” Breitbart told Lauer about the photo, “he would use this against me and the people on the left side of the blogosphere would have used this against me. I could put that out there and his career would have been over today."

Nevertheless, he said he has lots of sympathy for Weiner.

“In the room, I felt so unbelievably sad for this guy,” he told Lauer. “He should have resigned, and he wouldn’t have had to deal with that humiliating moment."

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