Push Back

Massa: 'I Was Set Up'

Says Dems wanted him out before health-care vote.

Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) isn't going to go quietly: "I was set up for this from the very, very beginning," says the outgoing congressman from New York, who was accused of sexual harassment by an aide but now says he is being forced out by Democratic leadership because he did not vote for health care. Massa is already booked to go on Glenn Beck for the full hour on Tuesday. He also has explained details of the ethics investigation. Massa said he and his staff were drunk at a wedding, and one staffer said the congressman should pursue a bridesmaid, which Massa replied to by tousling the hair of a second staffer and saying, “Well, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.” Though he conceded the statement was inappropriate, he said the complaint was made by a third staffer out of “political correctness.” "Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health-care bill, and now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass,” Massa said. “You connect the dots." Massa also called Rahm Emanuel "son of the devil's spawn" and said he confronted him in a locker room shower when they were both naked.