“The bottom line is this: I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” a visibly upset Sanford said, adding that he had been having an affair with a “dear, dear friend” from Argentina.
Sanford said his family has known of his affair for “about the last 5 months,” he said.
“I hurt my wife, I hurt my boys … I hurt a lot of different folks,” Sanford said. “All I can say is that I apologize.”
He and his wife Jenny Sanford are physically separated — the First Lady is staying with her parents — but the governor would not say whether he and his wife were legally separated.
The admission followed several days of intense speculation by media outlets and politicians alike after news broke that the Governor had left town without telling his family or his staff his whereabouts.
Originally, Sanford’s staff had told reporters that the governor was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but then told staffers that he was in Argentina.
“I want to make absolutely clear that over the past two days at no time did anyone on my staff intentionally relay false information to other state officials or the public at large,”
Sanford said in a statement released after the conference. “What they've said over the past two days they believed to be true, and I'm sorry to them for putting them in this position.”
Sanford also said that at no point did any of his staff intentionally cover up news of his affair.
Reports about the governor’s office revealed that the governor had abandoned his security detail and that his family did not know where he was.
The governor returned to the country Wednesday morning.
Sanford said he would resign from his position as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association, stating that it was the appropriate thing to do.
The governor asked that the media extend “a zone of privacy” around his family at this time.
“If not for me, then for her and the boys,” Sanford said.
Sanford apologized to his family, his friends, his staff and “anyone who lives in South Carolina.”
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