Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) on Monday expressed dismay at a video purportedly showing his since-fired staffer filming himself engaging in explicit sexual activity in a congressional hearing room.
Cardin made his first comments to reporters just off the Senate cloakroom after evening votes, just two days after terminating Aidan Maese-Czeropski’s employment as a legislative aide over the now-viral video.
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“I was angry, disappointed. It’s a breach of trust so all of the above,” the Maryland senator said. “It’s a tragic situation, and it’s presented a lot of anger and frustration. I’m concerned about our staff and the way that they feel about this.”
Asked if he had received an apology from Maese-Czeropski, Cardin said he had not spoken to him directly.
Explicit video footage was published Friday that purportedly showed two men engaging in sexual intercourse on the dais of a Senate hearing room. The Daily Caller, which obtained the pornographic material on Friday, reported that the footage was filmed by a congressional staffer inside the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room in the Hart Senate Office Building, which is known for high-profile confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justices.
Although the outlet did not name the staffer in question, Maese-Czeropski’s name was subsequently widely shared on social media.
The footage was published hours after the American Spectator reported that a male staffer in Cardin’s office had been filming pornographic videos in the Capitol. While the person was not identified, the report references one of the individual staffer’s social media accounts, to which he allegedly posts sexually explicit images and videos.
Maese-Czeropski, 24, has not confirmed that he was one of the two men in the pornographic video, instead taking to social media on Friday to largely absolve himself of responsibility for the video and threaten legal action. The post, published to his LinkedIn, has since been deleted along with Maese-Czeropski’s account.
The U.S. Capitol Police told the Washington Examiner over the weekend that it was investigating the matter, which Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) predicted would end in some manner of criminal charges.
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“I think there’s gonna be an investigation, and I think there will probably be a criminal prosecution is my best guess,” Kennedy told the Washington Examiner on Monday evening.
For his part, Cardin told reporters on Monday that he was cooperating with Capitol Police’s investigation into the matter.
