A congressional staffer deleted from Crowley’s Wikipedia page a link to a 2011 New York Post story that revealed how he and his family have settled in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Va., 250 miles from his home district.
The congressman even sends his three kids to Arlington’s nationally renowned public schools, shunning New York City’s educational system, The Post revealed in the 2011 exposé.
The effort to scrub the news article made the BuzzFeed Web site’s list of the “13 more embarrassing Wikipedia edits by congressional staff.”
Veteran GOP consultant Ed Rollins rapped Crowley for trying to delete an unflattering item from his personal history.
“The whole new social media is made for manipulation. At the end of the day, you have to be truthful or you’ll get caught,” said Rollins. “And that’s what happened to Crowley.”
BuzzFeed was able to link congressional staffers to the deletion from Crowley’s Wikipedia page by the IP address associated with the deletion.
House of Representatives offices share the same IP address, making it easy to trace the edits back to Congress — if not to an individual congressional staffer.
Crowley and his congressional aides refused to answer The Post’s questions about his sanitized bio or blame anyone else for the editing.
Many members of Congress move their families to the nation’s capital. But Crowley’s living arrangement raised eyebrows because of his dual role as the Democratic Party chairman in Queens.
The revelation about Crowley’s long-distance relationship with his district has continued to be a sore subject for the congressman. “I live in Woodside, Queens. My home and my residence is Woodside, Queens,” Crowley told New York reporters after The Post’s story broke two years ago.
Crowley insisted at the time that he moved his family to Virginia because he wanted to spend more quality time with his kids.
Crowley keeps a toehold in the borough, maintaining ownership of a longtime family home on 65th Street in Woodside — although neighbors say they seldom see him.
He bought his Virginia home for $690,000 in 2004, six years after being elected to Congress.
A dozen House colleagues joined Crowley on the list of embarrassing Wikipedia edits.
Upstate Democrat Rep. Paul Tonko’s page was scrubbed of a section that noted he still received a pension from his time as a state lawmaker.
The page for Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) was edited to delete mentions of an AR-15 assault rifle being stolen from her home and her saying during the October government shutdown that she wouldn’t give up her paycheck.
