Brett McGurk, Obama’s Iraq envoy nominee, sees bid imperiled by suggestive emails
Brett McDowell, DMARC.org’s chairman and a senior manager at PayPal, said in a statement that “email phishing defrauds millions of people and companies every year, resulting in a loss of consumer confidence in email and the Internet as a whole.”
It's everyone's worst nightmare — someone publishes your personal emails online at a critical point in your career.
Welcome to life for Brett McGurk, the Obama administration's pick for the next ambassador to Iraq, who is under fire over unconfirmed emails leaked online that suggest he was having an affair with a journalist for the Wall Street Journal while in Baghdad, reported CNN.
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The sexually-charged correspondence alleged to be between McGurk and Journal reporter Gina Chon surfaced earlier this week on Flickr.com and then on the blog Cryptome. However, it was not immediately clear whether McGurk, who married in 2006, was still with his wife at the time of the believed 2008 email exchange, said CNN.
McGurk and Chon, now married, have declined to comment on the reports.
Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma put off a planned meeting with McGurk due to "some concerning issues," The Washington Post cited his office as saying.
The Washington Post also cited a statement from WSJ saying the company is looking into the issue and that Chon left the paper in March after she learned her then-fiancee was being considered for the Iraq post.
The State Department defended McGurk's integrity but declined to affirm or verify the e-mails, according to CNN.
Democratic sources told The Washington Post they think McGurk's nomination will still go through.