Rollcall has a potentially damning story: it suggests key House GOPers had gotten a complaint a year ago about now-resigned Rep. Marc Foley’s emails to a 16-year-old male Congressional page — and didn’t tell Democrats about it.
The emails in question are apparently some of the less-sexually- explicit ones than the highly explicit ones obtained by ABC News. But the implication is that it was kept under hush-hush (Democrats reportedly didn’t even know about it) for political reasons:
Ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who resigned Friday after reports of his improper communications with a former male House page were made public, was interviewed about some of those contacts by the chairman of the House Page Board and the then-Clerk of the House last year.
And late Friday night, the House passed a resolution directing the ethics committee to begin an inquiry into Foley’s behavior.
“I’ll just simply say that the House has given us direction to look into this matter and we intend to do so,” said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), chairman of the ethics panel.
Ranking member Howard Berman (D-Calif.) added that they will do it “quickly.”
Both Hastings and Berman declined to comment when asked if they would look specifically into leadership and when they knew information about Foley.
That’s because, according to the Hotline piece, a new ingredient has been tossed into the political mix: GOPers were told about this a year ago and it only came to public light (and to the attention of Democrats) this week:
At least four Republican House Members, one senior GOP aide and a former top officer of the House were allegedly aware of the allegations about Foley that prompted the initial reporting regarding his e-mail contacts with a 16-year-old House page. They include: Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) and Reps. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.), as well as a senior aide to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and former Clerk of the House Jeff Trandahl.
Boehner strongly denied media reports late Friday night that he had informed Hastert of the allegations, saying “That is not true.” Reynolds refused to comment.
Shimkus, who chairs the page board, and Trandahl, who administered the program, met with Foley in 2005 after learning of Foley’s e-mail exchange with the former page by Alexander. Shimkus released a detailed statement Friday night.
House sources said that Foley denied any improper sexual activity when confronted by Shimkus and Trandahl. Their information only included some August 2005 e-mails that contained no references to sex or other improper behavior, and not the other messages that have been reported by ABC News.
According to a senior House GOP leadership aide, Hastert’s office was informed of the interview shortly after it occurred, but Hastert himself was not told.
A key Democrat is not pleased with being kept out of the loop.
Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.), who serves on the page board, was never told of the interview with Foley.
“I became aware of it this afternoon when [Shimkus] came by my office. I think we should have had a page meeting right away,” Kildee said, referring to last year’s discovery of Foley’s e-mails.
When asked if was upset about being excluded, Kildee said yes, adding, “I’ve been on the page board for 20 years.”
“I’m the chairman of the page board,” Shimkus said when asked why he didn’t include Kildee. “The Clerk and I addressed this issue.”
The implication in THAT statement is one reason why so many voters are reportedly thinking about a change: it often seems as if the Republican leadership thinks the Republican party IS the Congress. Why bring the Democrats into an issue like that — one that should be of concern to both parties and all Americans…whether young people who work for little money in Washington to find out what the world is all about are finding out a little too quickly what some people are all about. In 21st-century terms, this kind of incident between a page and a politico is sexual harassment.
Other Democrats weren’t happy, either:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who introduced a privileged resolution Friday night to require an ethics probe, criticized Republican leaders, who she said, “have known of the egregious behavior of Congressman Mark Foley, yet were prepared to adjourn tonight without an Ethics Committee investigation.”
“The investigation must determine when Mr. Foley sent the inappropriate emails, who knew of them, whether there was a pattern of inappropriate activity by Mr. Foley with pages or former pages, when the Republican leadership was notified, and what corrective action was taken once officials learned of any improper activity,” she added.
But the spin has already begun.
Last night one radio talk show host was talking about the scandal some years ago involving Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat — as if that had any relevance to the current scandal involving an adult allegedly sending explicit emails and instant messages to a 16-year-old boy.
The questions are (a) what kind of structural safeguards will be placed on the program to protect youths who serve in Congress, and (b) what impact this will have on the Republicans’ 2006 midterm election hopes.
The first: there will likely be some tightening of regulations.
The second: if it comes out that the GOP Congressional leadership knew more about these complaints and sat on them, the story will grow if there are denials that prove to be false. In the long term, it’s one more image of how a party that vowed to do things differently when Newt Gingrich was dreaming of a GOP takeover has morphed into a kind of bloated political boa constrictor, fat, sated, and seemingly unmovable after a huge meal of unlimited power.
The danger for the GOP: this is the kind of story that will thrive and grow if more details come out. Any denials better be accurate or Mr. Foley’s may not be the only career derailed when this is over. And because it’s a kind of “high concept” story (Sex/Underage Youths/Middle Aged Powerful Politico/Part of the Establishment Party In Power) it will resonate with the media…and over the water coolers.
Yet another danger: it could become part of the stand-up and late-night talk show biz culture. Some stand-up comedians are likely to rewrite old Michael Jackson jokes and adapt them to the Foley scandal.
UPDATE: Interesting tidbits from the AP:
Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who sponsored the page from his district, told reporters that he learned of the e-mails from a reporter some months ago and passed on the information to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Republican campaign organization.
Alexander said he did not pursue the matter further because “his parents said they didn’t want me to do anything.”
Carl Forti, a spokesman for the GOP campaign organization, said Reynolds learned from Alexander that the parents did not want to pursue the matter. Forti said, however, that the matter did go before the House Page Board — the three lawmakers and two House officials who oversee the pages…
Then there’s this.
“Congressman Foley told the (House) clerk and me that he was simply acting as a mentor … and that nothing inappropriate had occurred,” Shimkus said.
Foley was ordered to cease all contact with the former page and assured Shimkus he would do so, the statement said. He also was advised to watch his conduct with current and former House pages, and he gave assurance he would do so, Shimkus said. He added that here were no further complaints.
The problem: instant messaging messages released yesterday suggest it was far more than mentoring.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.