Republican Page Board Member Confirms: No Investigation Happened

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From DailyKOS:
In addition to Kildee's statement, now there's this, from the Charleston Daily Mail (via AMERICAblog):

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., says she was not told about suggestive e-mails that a Florida congressman sent to a 16-year-old former Capitol page, even though she is one of three representatives who oversee the page program. [...]Several high-ranking House Republicans have known about the e-mails for months, including Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the House Page Board.

Late last year, Shimkus met with Foley about the e-mails. But Shimkus never told Capito or the board's other member, Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., about them until Friday, according to all three.

"There's only three of us on the page board. I feel that we should have been informed," Capito said. "I'm absolutely disgusted by what I'm hearing. I was caught totally unaware."  [...]

Capito said she would have been very concerned if she had read those e-mails.

"I don't think it would pass the sniff test," she said. "Even asking those questions -- that is not normal between a 52-year-old adult and a 16-year-old. It's not like they're family friends or anything. I think it would raise some serious questions. But I wasn't given that opportunity."

Late last year, Shimkus and former House Clerk Jeff Tandahl met privately with Foley to talk about the e-mails, but did not tell the other House Page Board members or launch an investigation.


Hastert -- unbelievably -- is changing his story yet again, trying to claim that the House leadership "didn't know." That's a flat lie. There have now been at least two high-level GOP figures, Boehner and Reynolds, who gave direct quotes to the press saying Hastert personally knew about the Foley "problem". Boehner then rather astonishingly called up the Washington Post to retract his previous quote -- but Reynolds didn't, and Hastert has pointedly refused to dispute Reynold's assertion.

The undisputed facts here are these: the GOP pages (but not the Democratic pages) were "warned" about Foley as of 2001. Alexander, Shimkus, Reynolds, Boehner, Tandahl, and Hastert, at minimum, knew about the problem. It came up very directly again in late 2005, and there are stories in the press describing Hastert and the others as discussing the problem multiple times between then and the spring of 2006.

And nothing happened. Hastert himself knew, his office knew, and a sizable chunk of the leadership knew -- and they just didn't do nothing, they prevented the usual channels from even investigating the claims. As Capito says, it doesn't pass the sniff test.

They were afraid to offend gays? Thats their excuse?

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From DailyKOS:

The Mighty Wurlitzer is a bit off kilter, with seemingly dozens of excuses making the rounds for why the Republican leadership would allow a sexual predator to continue preying on teenagers despite knowledge of the danger.

But my favorite is this one:

Tony Perkins of Dobson's Family Research Counsel was on CNN earlier and I think we are hearing the contours of the Christian Right's argument. They are going with Newt Gingrich's formulation: Poor Denny was afraid of being called a gay basher so he didn't say anything.

This from the party that has made gay-bashing a key and recurring component of its reelection strategy. As Digby notes:
Since when has the GOP been afraid to be called homophobic or gay bashers? They positively revel in it. In fact, just a couple of months ago 202 Republican House members voted for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. (It failed to get the required 2/3rds for passage.) Somehow, I don't think the Republicans are quaking in their boots at being called anti-gay.

And if they were so afraid of being called anti-gay that they allowed a 52 year old congressman to stalk 16 year old boys on the internet, then they are much too timorous to be running the government. These guys are charged with making laws and running wars, for gawd's sake.


This line of defense is cute and quite ballsy, no doubt, but they'd be better served simply throwing Dennis Hastert overboard. But cross your fingers that they're too stubborn to pull that off.

Republican Underage Sex Scandal: Boehner Says Hastert Knew

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Courtesy of DailyKOS:

And the wheels are off the bus. Boehner says Hastert knew about the investigation, and told Boehner "we're taking care of it." From the Washington Post:

The resignation rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley's GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him "we're taking care of it."

As I said in comments below, Hastert's toast. If he can survive this with his leadership position intact, it will only be because the GOP is so riddled with corruption that it has literally nobody else to fall back on.

You don't protect a sexual predator using the tools of your office. No, not even if you're a Republican.

Republican House Underage Sex Scandal: Part 3

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Courtesy of DailyKOS:

It may be late Friday night, but new info is coming fast and furious. I'll cite Josh Marshall again, since he's updating with new information and his site is currently going up and down from the traffic:

Chairman of the House Page Board, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) interviewed Foley last year about some of the contacts with the page. The House clerk who is also a member of the Board was also present. Speaker Hastert's office was informed of the interview, but according to leadership sources who spoke to Roll Call, Hastert himself was not informed.Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI), the only Democrat on the Board, was not informed of the interview, according to Roll Call.

Note how quickly the information is coming out now about who knew what, and when, in the Republican leadership. They're thoroughly burned on this one -- people are talking, now, to a lot of people in the media.

Pelosi, furious that the Democratic leadership were not informed of the situation for nearly an entire year after the emails were discovered, has already demanded and gotten a House Ethics investigation -- her resolution passed the House 410 to zero. The House committee on Official Conduct now has ten days to issue a preliminary report on what the Republican leadership knew, when they knew it, and what they did or didn't do about it.

I don't think the news media is going to wait around ten days for the Republicans to investigate themselves. I don't think they're going to wait one.

Update: Foley Reported Nearly One Year Ago & Republican House Leadership Involved

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This courtesy of the DailyKOS:

This congressional sex scandal has just hit blockbuster status: according to the Associated Press, the Foley behavior towards pages was known nearly a year ago, and the House Leadership took no action:

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.

It was unclear what the officials did.

The board currently is headed by Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who did not respond to requests for an interview. [...]

Efforts to reach the boy were unsuccessful, but he told the St. Petersburg Times last November, "I thought it was very inappropriate. After the one about the picture, I decided to stop e-mailing him back." The Times didn't publish the comments until Friday.

Alexander said the boy notified a staffer in his office about the e-mails. The congressman said he learned of it from a reporter 10 or 11 months ago and promptly called the boy's parents.

"My concern then was the young man's interests and the parents' interests," Alexander said Friday. "We weren't trying to protect anybody except the parents. ... They told me they were comfortable with it and didn't want to pursue anything, didn't want to talk about it anymore."


This is huge. The number of Republican representatives who knew about the Foley advances towards young pages nearly a year ago appears to include House Speaker Dennis Hastert; Tom Reynolds; John Shimkus; Alexander; and as Josh Marshall points out, Tom Delay and/or Roy Blunt.

Jesus. They knew for nearly a year, and covered it up. The "corruption" frame just got a hell of a lot more serious. Today, Dennis Hastert said an investigation would be forthcoming. I'll bet he's right, and I'll bet he's going to be one of the ones investigated -- because he knew of it ten months ago.

Update:

See post below for more info. Via Josh Marshall, the News Star, of Louisiana, is reporting that Republican Majority Leader John Boehner was also informed by Alexander of Foley's behavior.

That makes between seven and nine Republican Congressmen, minimum, that had been informed.

Huge story. May be the story for the next month.

Breaking News: Republican Congressman resigning over sex scandal with a multiple teens!

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Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) planned to resign today, hours after ABC questioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with current and former Congressional pages under the age of 18.A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in a letter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Hours earlier, ABC News had read excerpts of instant messages provided by former pages who said the congressman, under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organs and acts.

The full details will be included in a report tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.


From DailyKOS:
After issuing a flurry of self-righteous, outraged denials last night, Mark Foley is resigning from Congress today after realizing that he won't be able to stop the full exposure of the extent of his inappropriate and predatory advances towards current and former Congressional pages under the age of 18. That a Congressman would abuse his position of authority to make predatory advances to 16-year-olds is one of the most shameful stains on political office imaginable. This requires more than a resignation. This requires atonement.

In the comments section at Swing State, Democraticavenger points out that Mark Foley's campaign cash will likely find its way back into the National Republican Campaign Committee's coffers, much like how former CA-50 Rep. Duke Cunningham spread his campaign cash before he began his prison term. If Foley had any sense of remorse, or any sense of shame, he would surrender all $2.8 million of his cash-on-hand (Aug. 16 numbers) to charities for exploited children.


Excerpt of some of the IM's. They're way too graphic for me to reprint but here is the gist:
Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.

Another message:

Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.

And this one:

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.


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