Congressman Cohen Says Woman He Tweeted Is His Daughter

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

(Memphis) – Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen revealed Thursday night that he has a daughter he didn’t even know about until three years ago.

His constituents didn’t learn about Victoria Brink until Thursday during a live phone interview on News Channel 3 at 6.

Voters still might not know about her had it not been for deleted tweets Cohen sent to his daughter during Tuesday’s State of the Union Speech made public Wednesday.

Cohen, who is not married, deleted tweets saying ‘ilu,’ short for ‘I love you,’ to Victoria Brink.

Cohen claimed that nothing was inappropriate and that the woman was a daughter of an old family friend.

Turns out that old family friend is an old girlfriend of Cohen`s and Victoria Brink’s mother.

“When she let me know she was watching the State of the Union Address I was just so thrilled that she was watching it… and having a little bit of Steve Cohen be part of her. That’s why I responded,” he said. “I was thrilled.”

The Democratic congressman tells WREG he has only known about his daughter for three years.

He said curiosity led him to search for Brinks mother.

“I Googled her mother, found out she had a child and the math looked pretty accurate,” he said. ”She told me we had a lot of catching up to do.”

That’s when she told him about Victoria.

“She said every time I look at her I see the German-Jew in her face, that’s me. I`m Lithuanian, but that’s close enough,” he said.

He showed us pictures of the Texas State graduate and told us how proud he was to be her dad.

“I look many times at pictures when she was a child and I think about what I missed not seeing her growing up,” he said.

But he is working on building a relationship with her, and she recently came to Memphis.

“We spent three days together. I was able to take her to Graceland and the Civil Rights Museum and try to turn her on to some things in my life.”

He even took her to the White House Christmas party where he told his fellow congressmen about his daughter.

“Had a great time and let colleagues know she was my daughter,” he said.

His constituents though, were still in the dark about Brink though until Thursday night.