Full transcript of Governor Mark Sanford's confession of affair

I won't begin in any particular spot. Let me just start with ... I don't see her, where's Gina Smith? Not here? Ok. I had a conversation with Gina Smith this morning when I arrived in Atlanta and I told her about my love of the Appalachian Trail. I used to organize hiking trips. Actually, when I was in high school I would get a soccer coach or a football coach to act as chaperone, and then I'd get folks to pay me $60 each, or whatever it was, to take the trip and then off we'd go and have these great adventures in the Appalachian Trail.

And I told her of adventure trips both in college, was a campus representative for Eastern Airlines and could fly free, which meant I'd fly to different places around the world, get myself a job, carry $100 in emergency money and either find a job there with locals and come back, or come on home. Told about my years in Congress, and early years in governorship, of different adventure trips of leaving and traveling different places, because what I have found in this job is that one desperately needs a break from the bubble. We're in every word, every moment is recorded, just to completely break and I've found that to be true in trips to the farm, or in trips to other places further afield...and all those things were true.

I talked about the profound frustrations that I felt over this last legislative session in the battle that was in place with the government stimulus package, the $700 million in play, and how in an emotional level I found it exhausting.

I tried making as good as stand as I could, not for a further political office. What was interesting is always viewed of you doing this to climb some further political office? It was always based on that idea that I genuinely believe that that actually would be bad for the taxpayers and made the stand as I did.

So all those things we talked about this morning were true, but they're not the whole story, and that's obviously why everybody's gathered here right now. So let me lay out that larger story that has attracted so many of you all here. I'm a bottom line kind of guy. I'll lay it out. It's gonna hurt, and we'll let the chips fall where they may.

In so doing, let me first of all apologize to my wife Jenny, and our four great boys Marshall, Landon, Bolton and Blake for letting them down.

One of the primary roles well before being a governor is being a father to those four boys who are absolute jewels and blessings that I've let down in a profound way. And I apologize to them. And I don't like apologizing in this realm, but given the immediacy of y'alls wanting to visit and my proximity to them, this is the first step in what will be a very long process on that front.

I would secondly say to Jenny, anybody who has observed her over the last 20 years of my life knows how closely she has stood by my side in campaign after campaign after campaign and literally being my campaign manager and the raising of those four boys and in a whole host of other things throughout the lives that we've built together.

I would also apologize to my staff, because as much as I did talk about going to the Appalachian Trail, that was one of the original scenarios that I'd thrown out to Mary Neal, that isn't where I ended up. And so I let them down by creating a fiction with regard to where I was going, which means that I then in turn given as much as they relied on that information, let down people that I represent across this state.

And so I want to apologize to my staff, and I want to apologize to anybody who lives in South Carolina for the way that I let them down on that front.

I want to apologize to good friends. Tom Davis came over to the house, he drove up from Beaufort, and he had been an incredibly dear friend for a very long time.

In my first race for governor he moved up and he lived in the basement of our house for six months and we called it 'Jurassic Park' 'cause it was the kids' dinosaur shoes and all kinds of different folks were living there in the campaign and he gave of his time and his talent and his effort for ideas that he believed in, to try and make a difference in those ideas. And so I have in a very profound way, have let down the Tom Davis' of the world.

On the ride over here I called the house and in the background I could hear my parents in laws who had come up to be with Jenny, and I've let them down.

I had the most, you know, surreal of conversations a number of weeks ago with my father-in-law, laying some cards on the table and he was incredibly, gentlemanly, as you cannot imagine, in saying here were some things I was struggling with regard to where my heart was, where I was in life, those different kinds of things. And I let him down.

I've let down a lot of people. That's the bottom line.

And I let them down and in every instance I would ask there forgiveness. Forgiveness is not an immediate process, it is in fact a process that takes time and I'll be in that process for quite some weeks and months and I suspect years ahead.

But I'm here because if you were to look at God's laws, in every instance it is designed to protect people from themselves. I think that that is the bottom line of God's law. It is not a moral, rigid list of do's and don'ts just for the heck of do's and don'ts, it is indeed to protect us from ourselves. And the biggest self of self is indeed self. If sin is in fact grounded in this notion of what is it that I want, as opposed to somebody else.

And in this regard let me throw one more apology out there and that is to people of faith across South Carolina or for that matter across the nation, because I think that one of the big disappointments when -- believe it or not I've been a person of faith all my life -- if somebody falls within the fellowship of believers or the walk of faith, I think it makes it that much harder for believers to say well, where does that person come from or folks that weren't believers to say where indeed was that person coming from. SO one more apology in there.

But I guess where I'm trying to go with this is there are moral absolutes and that God's law indeed is there to protect you from yourself, and there are consequences if you breach that. This press conference is a consequence.

And so the bottom line is this. I've been unfaithful to my wife. I have developed a relationship with a...what started as a dear dear friend from Argentina. It began very innocently as I suspect many of these things do in just a casual email back and forth in advice on one's life there and advice here. But here recently over this last year it developed into something much more than that.

And as a consequence I hurt her, I hurt you all, I hurt my wife, I hurt my boys, I hurt friends like Tom Davis, I hurt a lot of different folks. And all I can say is that I apologize.

I would ask your ya'lls, I guess I'm not deserving of indulgence, but indulgence not for me, but for Jenny and the boys, you know there are a team of cameras and crews and all those sorts of things camped out down at Sullivan's Island, and I would just ask for a zone of privacy, if not for me, for her and the boys.

As we go through the process of working through this there are going to be some hard decisions to be made, to be dealt with. And those are probably not best dealt with through the prism of television cameras and media headlines.

You know I'm committed to that process of walking through with Jenny and the boys, with the TOm Davis' of the world, with the people of South Carolina in saying 'where do we go from here?'

I would simply say I go back to that simple word of asking for forgiveness.

Just as a declarative statement, one more before we open up for a couple of questions and then I'll move on.

You know, I've tried to think of...one of the first steps is clearing out more time as we go through this process of reconciliation and figuring out what comes next. I'm going to resign as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association. I'm going to tender my resignation -- one, because I think it's the appropriate thing to do given other governors across this nation and my role as Chairman of the RGA, and two frankly just from the standpoint of time. You know if I think about this process, now it doesn't begin at a family level it begins with a family of South Carolinians, and so that means me going one by one and town by town to talk to a lot of old friends across this state in what I've done and be asking their forgiveness, and that'll take time, time I probably can't devote to the RGA.

Sanford: Questions?

Reporter: Governor, what happens next?

Reporter: Are you planning to reconcile?

Sanford: I am, yes.

Reporter: Are you separated from the first lady?

Sanford: I don’t know how you want to define that. I mean, I’m here and she’s there. I guess in a formal sense we’re not. But, you know what we’re trying to do is work through something that we’ve been working through for a couple of months now.

Reporter: Did your wife and your family know about the affair before the trip to Argentina?

Sanford: Yes. We’ve we’ve been working through this thing for about the last five months. Um, I’ve been to a lot of different, I was part of a group called ‘See Street’ when I was in Washington. It was a - believe it or not – Christian Bible study. Some folks asked members of Congress some hard questions. I think were very very important and I’ve been working with them and I see Cubby Culbertson in the back of the room. I would consider him a spiritual giant. And, hang on hang on and incredibly dear friend and he has done in helping us work through this over these last five months. And Colby I want to say thank you for being there as a friend.

Reporter: This is the first and only time you’ve been unfaithful?

Sanford: Yes. Yes sir.

Reporter: Were you alone in Argentina?

Sanford: Obviously not.

Reporter: Did you break off the relationship?

Sanford: The…ah. It was interesting in how this thing has gone down John. To give you way more detail then you’ll ever want. I met this person a little over eight years ago, again very innocently. And struck up a conversation…and I don’t want to go back to the bubble of politics and this is not justifying…because again what I did was wrong, period…end of story. And wait…(question from reporter)…no I didn’t I bought my own ticket. Wait...wait…one question at a time, is that fair enough? And there’s a certain irony to this. This was about the time this person had separated, and we ended up in this incredible serious conversation about why she ought to get back with her husband for the sake of her two boys. That not only was it a part of God’s laws, but ultimately those two boys would be better off for it. And we had this incredibly earnest conversation…and at the end of it said “could I get your email,” swapped emails…whatever. And it began just on a very casual basis, “hey I’ve got this issue that’s come up in my life,” or vice versa, “what do you think?” Because when you live in the zone of politics, you can never let your guard down…you can never say what do you think…or what do you think because it can be a front page story, or this story, or that story. And so there was this zone of protectedness in that she lives thousands of miles away and I was up here…and you could throw an idea out or vice versa. And we developed a remarkable friendship over those eight years. And then as I said about a year ago it sparked into something more than that…I have seen her three times since then…during that whole sparking thing and it was discovered….(to reporter) let me finish…five months ago. And at that point we went into serious overdrive in trying to say where do you go from here, and that’s where the Cubby Culbertsons and the others of the world began to help with you know...how do you get all this right…how do you again be honest. And so it had been back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. And the one thing that you really find is that you absolutely want resolution. And so oddly enough, I’ve spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina, so I could repeat it when I came back here. In saying…you know…while indeed from a heart level there was something real, it was a place based on the fiduciary relationship I’ve had… to the people of South Carolina, based on my boys, based on my wife, based on where I was in life, based on where she was in life…a place I couldn’t go and she couldn’t go. And that is a…I suspect….a continual a process all through life, of getting one’s heart right in life. And so I would never stand before you as one who just says “Yo I’m completely right on regard to all things,” what I would say is that I’m committed to try to get my heart right. And based on what Cubby and others have told me is, the odyssey that we’re all on in life is with regard to heart. Not what I want, or what you want, but in other words indeed this larger notion of truly trying to put other people first. And I suspect if I had really put this other person first, I wouldn’t have jeopardized her life as I had…I wouldn’t have done it to my wife, I wouldn’t have done to my boys, I wouldn’t have done it to the Tom Davis’s of the world. This was selfishness on my part, and for that I’m most apologetic.

Reporter: (couldn’t hear question ) Something like “was this your only time”?

Sanford: Yes.

Reporter: Did you intentionally mislead your staff about hiking the trail. Did you intentionally mislead them about where you were? Did you talk with them at any point while you were in Argentina?

Sanford: Yes, in other words they called, I called them back on Monday.

Reporter: But when you left did you intentionally…

Sanford: No, no, no…we talked about that…in other words…let me be clear…I said that that was a reasonable possibility, again that is my fault in enshrouding this larger trip…that’s my fault.

Reporter: Did you tell your staff to tell the press that you were hiking in the Appalachian trail?

Sanford: I didn’t tell them…I just said hey guys, this is where I think I’m gonna go. In other words they would have deducted from that.

Reporter: If you said that you had gone to Argentina, you obviously would have told them…

Sanford: No, no they would have gone on the original information I had told them.

Reporter: Did you ask any state employees to cover up this affair for you?

Sanford: No, absolutely not.

Reporter: Did you ask your staff to cover up this affair?

Sanford: No.

Reporter: Your reaction to those in your party, in your lieutenant governor, who are calling this irresponsible and are disappointed in your decision to do this?

Sanford: At this point it would be obvious that they and others would be disappointed, and that I’ve had disappointed them and others.