Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, attracted unwanted attention during the State of the Union address, when press reported on what appeared to be flirtatious tweets sent to a very pretty 24-year-old blonde. It didn't help Cohen's case when he then deleted the tweets just a few minutes. Oh no, it's another Weinergate only not as exciting because there's no penis photo, the conservative media crowed. Turns out Rep. Cohen actually has a very pretty 24-year-old daughter, a fact that has been kept secret from the public for, well, 24 years. Scandal dodged. Sort of. 
 
 It's actually pretty sweet story. Cohen told NBC News the whole thing on Thursday. Yes, Brinks has a secret daughter. Her name is Victoria Brink, and she appears to have had some sort of career as a bikini model. The congressman only found out about her three years ago. "I googled her mother, found out she had a child and the math looked pretty accurate," he said. "The mom told me we had a lot of catching up to do." Since then, Cohen's done his best to be a good dad. He's given her a tour of the Capitol and even took her to the White House Christmas party, where he asked the official photographer to take two pictures — one with him and Brinks together and one without Brinks — since nobody else knew about the situation. After that, Brinks took a trip to Memphis, Cohen's home district, though it's unclear if she hung out with dear old dad. 
 
 Cohen shows me picture of him and his daughter Victoria at White House Christmas party twitter.com/LukeRussert/st… — Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) February 14, 2013 
 
 All that said, the circumstances of Cohen's revealing his relationship with Brink are sketchy at best. That is to say, we can see how some people might think she was some sort of mistress. Cohen is not married, though his spokesperson says that he "has a longtime girlfriend in Memphis." Accounts vary as to when Cohen actually found out that Brinks was his daughter. His spokesperson says he's known her "pretty much since she was born" while NBC News says it's only been three years. There are a bunch of pictures on the Internet of Brink in skimpy bikinis, not that there's anything wrong with that. But again, we can see how some people would draw the conclusion that Brink is Cohen's secret lover, not his secret daughter. 
 
 One thing is absolutely clear: Cohen is bad at Twitter. Initially, Cohen's spokesperson said that the tweets were meant to be "private" direct messages to "the daughter of a longtime friend." You can almost smell Weinergate's return. As for the tweets themselves, Cohen says it was just good old fashioned paternal pride that compelled him to send them. "When she let me know she was watching the State of the Union address I was thrilled that she wanted Steve Cohen to be part of her," he told NBC News. "I had such joy, that I couldn't hold back from tweeting her." Everybody all at once: Awwwww. 
 
 The Sunlight Foundation maintains a website called Politwoops that archives politicians' deleted tweets, and this is not the first time that Cohen's tweeted at Brink. New York Magazine's Joe Coscarelli traces their Twitter relationship back to February 2012, almost exactly one year before the State of the Union, when Cohen favorited Brinks' first tweet. Tweets since then have been pretty adorable, especially Cohen's classic dad-just-learned-to-text spelling tricks — "miss u/wil call later_-give me a good time." 
 
 There will inevitably be a group of people that thinks Cohen is lying, that he made up an elaborate story about a long-lost daughter to avoid his own Weinergate. It's a pretty terrible cover story, though, you have to admit. Brazen at best. While we're eager to find out more details in the story of the Tennessee congressmen and his secret bikini-clad daughter, we're in no rush to dive into another Twitter-induced political scandal. There are more important things going on in the world. 
 
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 Adam Clark Estes 

 Steve Cohen and Victoria Brink at a White House Christmas party. 
 
 Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen raised some eyebrows this week when he sent, and then deleted, a few affectionate tweets to a 24-year-old model during the State of the Union. Cohen’s communications director insisted that Victoria Brink is just “the daughter of a longtime friend,” adding that they’re “pretty much like family.” And by that, he meant that they are family. This afternoon, Luke Russert broke the news that Brink is the congressman’s long-lost daughter, and now Cohen has fleshed out the story in an interview with NBC News. “When she let me know she was watching the State of the Union address I was thrilled that she wanted Steve Cohen to be part of her,” he says. “I had such joy, that I couldn’t hold back from tweeting her.” 
 
 Cohen wouldn’t explain how he didn’t know about his daughter until three years ago, but he said looking up an old girlfriend online led to the discovery. “I Googled her mother, found out she had a child and the math looked pretty accurate,” he said. “The mom told me we had a lot of catching up to do.” Cohen said Brink’s mother told him, “‘Yes every time I look at her I see the German Jew in her face,’ I’m Lithuanian close enough.” 
 
 Cohen and Brinks have apparently become close in the past few years. The congressman told NBC that he’s “proud to be her dad” and “loved her,” and Luke Russert tweeted, “Cohen was emotional while telling the story about his daughter, fought back tears, could feel genuine fatherly emotion.” Cohen says he’s taken her on a tour of the Capitol and the White House, and she was his date for last year’s White House Christmas party. “I want her to see my world and be a part of it,” he said. This is certainly a nice change of pace; the next time it’s revealed that a congressman is sending seemingly creepy messages to a young lady on Twitter, the outcome probably won’t be this heartwarming.
– For a brief, shining moment, the world thought it had another Weinergate on its hands: During the State of the Union address, Rep. Steve Cohen sent a few tweets to a 24-year-old (apparent) bikini model, then deleted them. The Tennessee Democrat is not married, and speculation quickly swirled that he had a secret lover. But, no, he just has a secret daughter, named Victoria Brink, he explains to NBC News. "When she let me know she was watching the State of the Union address I was thrilled that she wanted Steve Cohen to be part of her," the Congressman explains. (That's how NBC has the quote, but we think it's a little less odd/gross if "life" gets slipped in at the end.) "I had such joy, that I couldn’t hold back from tweeting her." You can see how his tweets could be taken in the wrong way: "nice to know you were watchin SOTU(state of the union).Happy Valentines beautiful girl. ilu" (That's "I love you.") In hindsight the whole thing is "actually [a] pretty sweet story," writes Adam Clark Estes on the Atlantic Wire. Cohen says he just found out about Brink three years ago, after Googling her mother and realizing she had a child. "The math looked pretty accurate," he says. "The mom told me we had a lot of catching up to do." He's since taken Brink to the White House Christmas party and on a tour of the Capitol. For more on the story, see the Daily Intelligencer.