Candidate takes down porn screenshot after trying to explain it

Congressional candidate Mike Webb tried to explain Monday night why he unintentionally posted a screenshot showing him browsing porn — but by Tuesday morning, the screenshot and its explanation had disappeared.

Webb, who is running as an independent to represent Virginia’s 8th District after losing the Republican primary, put up a post Monday afternoon accusing his GOP rival Matt Warvo of trying to sabotage him. But the screenshot he posted showed two other tabs, named “Ivone Sexy Amateur” and “Layla Rivera Tight,” which appeared to match the names of videos on porn sites.

The post remained up for several hours, and later Monday night, Webb posted a now-deleted rambling explanation for the screenshot.

“Curious by nature, I wanted to test the suggestion that somehow, lurking out in the pornographic world there is some evil operator waiting for the one in a gazillion chance that a candidate for federal office would go to that particular website and thereby be infected with a virus that would cause his or her FEC data file to crash the FECfile application each time that it was loaded on the day of the filing deadline, as well as impact other critical campaign systems,” he wrote.

Both the original screenshot and Webb’s explanation had disappeared by Tuesday morning, though cached versions of each were still available and Facebook commenters were still leaving comments on his page referencing the snafu.

One suggested the entire affair was “a great marketing stunt.” Another wrote he had “poor taste in pornography websites.”

Webb is seeking to unseat Democratic Rep. Don Beyer in one of the state’s bluest districts.

This story was originally published May 17, 2016 at 6:19 AM with the headline "Candidate takes down porn screenshot after trying to explain it."