Foley Quits Amid Allegations of Email Sex Scandal

Lawmaker Saw Foley Messages In 2000
Page Notified GOP Rep. Kolbe

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 9, 2006; Page A01

A Republican congressman knew of disgraced former representative Mark Foley's inappropriate Internet exchanges as far back as 2000 and personally confronted Foley about his communications.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100800855.html

The Reverend Dobson, Drudge and Savage call the Foley matter a "prank", or "joke".


"As it turns out, Mr. Foley has had illicit sex with no one that we know of, and the whole thing turned out to be what some people are now saying was a -- sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages. "



http://mediamatters.org/items/200610060004

Hmmm...but only Democrats are hypocritical, of course.

'05 Meeting Could Clarify G.O.P. Role in Foley Case
October 9, 2006
'05 Meeting Could Clarify G.O.P. Role in Foley Case
By JEFF ZELENY
New York Times

For all the questions and curiosities, for all the contradictions and inconsistencies in the tale of Mark Foley, the investigation into how Republicans handled concerns about his conduct may hinge on what transpired on a fall afternoon last year, when a private meeting was hastily convened in his office.

Jeff Trandahl, the clerk of the House, and Representative John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican who leads the board overseeing the Congressional page program, had come from the House floor to confront Mr. Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida, about reports that he had been exchanging e-mail messages with a Louisiana teenager who had worked as a page on Capitol Hill.

When they arrived in Room 104 of the Cannon House Building that day, Mr. Foley was already in his office, where oil paintings of the Everglades, done by his mother, were hanging alongside memorabilia from more than a decade of life in Washington. Elizabeth Nicolson, a longtime aide who had recently been named chief of staff, joined Mr. Foley for a meeting that lasted no more than 30 minutes.

What took place at this meeting ?- only four people were present, none of them Democrats ?- holds the answers to at least some of the pertinent questions in the case of Mr. Foley, who resigned abruptly from Congress late last month after learning that a series of sexually explicit messages had landed in the hands of ABC News.

"It was a brief meeting," said a senior Republican Congressional aide who was familiar with the session and spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter was under investigation. "Looking back, it was probably far too brief of a meeting."

Mr. Shimkus, who did not inform other members of the page board about the meeting, would later say that he had ordered Mr. Foley to "cease all contact" with the teenager. The scope of his questioning, however, is unclear. Last week, Mr. Shimkus said he had not asked Mr. Foley whether he had communicated with other pages by e-mail, but Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois has said Mr. Shimkus did.

This week, when a bipartisan, four-member panel deepens its inquiry, the meeting in Mr. Foley's office will be one critical point of entry. But investigators also intend to piece together a far broader timeline of events in the fall of Mr. Foley's political career, an examination that will take them back years, to when whispers began circulating about the gregarious congressman's behavior.

One of their main tasks will be to sort out conflicting versions of events on a range of fronts, including whether Mr. Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, was alerted to Mr. Foley's conduct in 2003 or earlier. Mr. Palmer has denied such a warning.

And the investigation is not limited to Mr. Foley, according to a letter that is to be distributed on Tuesday to each member of the House of Representatives.

"We request that you contact current and former House pages sponsored by your office for the purpose of learning whether any of those individuals had any inappropriate communications or interactions with former Representative Foley or any other member of the House," said the letter, which was signed by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the investigation.

The Congressional page scandal has overshadowed the final month of the midterm election campaign and threatened to upend Mr. Hastert's leadership. After spending last week trying to convince his own party that he had handled the situation appropriately, Mr. Hastert has yet to resolve questions about when he became aware of Mr. Foley's behavior.

Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, delivered an unusually critical assessment on Sunday of how Mr. Hastert had responded. The answers may not become clear, Mr. Davis said, until people are forced to testify under oath. In addition to the House inquiry, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is also examining Mr. Foley's conduct.

"They were slow out of the starting block, there's no question about it," Mr. Davis said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. He added, "It's taken a week of fumbling around to get to where we are."

Representative Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois, once chief of staff to Robert H. Michel of Illinois, the former Republican leader, said he did not believe Mr. Hastert had been served well by members of his staff. Some members of the speaker's staff had been aware for at least a year ?- and others possibly longer ?- about Mr. Foley's attention toward the teenage pages.

"I'm sure he's very angry about the fact that they withheld this information," said Mr. LaHood, a close friend of Mr. Hastert's. "So I hope he's talked to his staff. He deserves better than that."

Indeed, employees in the speaker's office are emerging as leading characters in answering a question born a generation ago in the Watergate scandal: Who knew what, and when did they know it?

There are inconsistencies in the accounts of top Republicans in the House, particularly regarding whether members of the leadership team told Mr. Hastert about reports of Mr. Foley's conduct. Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, a New York Republican who leads the National Republican Congressional Committee, has said he informed the speaker in the spring. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader, has said he also told Mr. Hastert.

"If Reynolds told me, it was in a line of things when we were in the middle of another crisis this spring," said Mr. Hastert, who spent much of the year dealing with the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. "So I just don't recall or remember that."

Differences have also emerged in describing Mr. Foley's departure. Republican Party talking points now suggest that Republican leaders took forceful steps to secure a quick resignation. Yet early on, Mr. Hastert said, "I think Foley resigned almost immediately upon the outbreak of this information, so we really didn't have a chance to ask him to resign."

But accounts of senior aides in the House, who have not spoken publicly, could help investigators determine whether there was a Republican cover-up, as some Democrats have asserted.

It is Mr. Palmer, the speaker's longtime chief of staff and closest adviser, and Mike Stokke, the deputy chief of staff, whose stories are of particular interest to investigators. A former aide to Mr. Foley, Kirk Fordham, said he was prepared to testify that he told Mr. Palmer of complaints about Mr. Foley's conduct in 2003 or earlier. Mr. Palmer rebuts the claim.

This week, Mr. Fordham is expected to appear before the House ethics panel, his lawyer said, where he intends to testify that he asked Mr. Palmer to deliver a stern caution to Mr. Foley, who reportedly refused to keep his distance from pages, despite frequent warnings. This time, people familiar with the situation said, word had started to spread that Mr. Foley had tried to enter the page dormitory after curfew.

Mr. Stokke, who oversees the political operation for Mr. Hastert, said he became aware that Mr. Foley had been "overfriendly" with pages a year ago. Even though Mr. Hastert and his two employees share a townhouse on Capitol Hill and fly back to Illinois most every weekend, the two aides said they did not tell each other or Mr. Hastert about Mr. Foley's troubles.

Finally, Ted Van Der Meid, the counsel to the speaker, also learned about a year ago that Mr. Foley had been exchanging e-mail messages with a former page from Louisiana. Mr. Van Der Meid and Mr. Stokke gave the information to the House clerk, Mr. Trandahl, who convened the meeting last fall in Mr. Foley's office that is now the focus of so much attention.

To investigators, Mr. Trandahl's story could be the most important piece in determining when Republican leaders learned of Mr. Foley's conduct.

As clerk, Mr. Trandahl was elected by the members of the House to oversee its operations, a powerful position that he attained after nearly two decades on the Hill. He also supervised the page program, handling issues as disparate as roommate disputes among the high school students and complaints about Mr. Foley's behavior.

Mr. Trandahl, who has declined to comment, had been telling friends for months that he intended to leave the House last summer for a position in the private sector. In late September, he accepted an offer to become executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

On one of his final days in the House, in the first week of November, just hours before Democrats and Republicans had a farewell party for him, Mr. Trandahl made his way toward Room 104 in the Cannon Building to confront Mr. Foley.

Now, Mr. Trandahl is expected to return to the Hill in the coming days or weeks, to tell his story to the House ethics committee.
------------------------------------------------

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

Bumble Bee, why don't you start posting reports on Congressman Jefferson too?

okie


Why don't you worry about your own posts, not mine. Your attempts to divert attention away from Republicans is pitiful.

In fact, I recall that I was the first to post the story about Democrat Jefferson's possible corruption several months ago. Funny how your memory is so short you don't recall that.

BBB

Sorry Bumble Bee, now that you mention it, I think you did post that. Just seems like a bit of an obsession now with Foley and pages. Its old news, Foley resigned. Foley is gone, Foley is gone, Foley is gone. Did everyone get that? Meanwhile Jefferson still sits in Congress, and nobody seems to care. Instead, the Democrats are worried about why the Republicans did not catch Foley sooner.

Okie


Never fear, when Robertson comes to trial, you will find that I think he is a bottom feeder just like the other scumbags.

BBB

You may be satisfied, okie, that the Foley story is played out, but where there's smoke, there's fire. One awaits the first proof that Foley acted on his urges...

Foley isn't the issue.

The handling of the information is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So where's that October surprise? It better be damned good.

Naturally, part of the difference is that Jefferson is fighting the charges. The Presumption of Innocence sort of goes hand in hand with not admitting guilt; I do believe that if Foley hadn't resigned so quickly, this whole scandal would have gone different, though there seems to be an overwhelming amount of evidence that he committed these immoral actions.

You state that the Foley affair is 'over,' but in reality, it's just begun. There is ample evidence that the Republicans have been covering this up for some time, and the truth is going to take some more elected officials down with it. I mean, it's only been what, a week and a half? And you're proclaiming the whole thing 'over?' C'mon! It takes time for facts, pertinent ones, to come out.

Are you telling us that you wouldn't be calling for Denny's head, if you found out that he knew about Foley and did nothing about it? Because that is exactly what Fordham is alleging, and more witnesses seem to come forward on a daily basis.

Cycloptichorn

More hypocrisy from the Republicans who claim they're for "family values".

SOURCE

BBB


I'm really annoyed with all the gay-bashing that is going on as well as the attempt to falsely paint all homosexuals as pedophiles. The important issue to me is the Republican attempt to cover up Foley's behavior to protect their power majority. Really revolting.

BBB

Why aren't the Democrats just as culpable in covering this up for years? If it was common knowledge there, then anyone should have reported the crimes, especially the people victimized by the crimes. How can you do something against somebody if no crimes are reported to authorities?
After all, being gay is no crime is it? There has to be something more reported, not just innuendos and gossip to blame anything on Hastert. He didn't make Foley a gay or elect him.

This is nothing more than Democrats trying to milk more political hay out of this for the election. This is childish grade school mentality.

okie


okie, dear, it would help if you engaged your brain each morning before you begin posting.

BBB

Re: BBB


If Foley used his office to solicit sex with pages, then it is important. I don't care what gender the kids were...

Whats wrong with what I said, Bumble Bee?

Re: BBB


Of course, I, like everyone else is outraged by Foley's behavior. He's paying for his actions and may also be charged with a felony. The more the better in his case.

BBB

Presumably, they didn't know about it, especially to the extent that the Republicans seem to have known about it.



Who said it was common knowledge amongst the Democrats? I have heard this thrown around by several Republicans, but they are unable to provide a shred of evidence that it is true. Most of those who were 'victimized' didn't know what to do; they didn't have anyone to go talk to about the problem, they certainly didn't think anyone would believe them. Get serious, man, these are 17 year old kids we are talking about...



What?!?!

You find out someone is doing something wrong, and if you have the power, you look into it. Simply asking someone if they did it and telling them to stop is insufficient. If you find out that they did in fact do something wrong, you report them to the cops yourself. This is easily understandable, why are you being mendacious?




There was a lot more than 'innuendo and gossip.' There were multiple complaints for years. Have you not been keeping up with the news?

Cycloptichorn

okie


I'd explain it to you if I thought it would make a difference in your thinking.

It won't.

BBB