Posted on 10/04/2006 10:01:51 AM PDT by AntiGuv
WASHINGTON - A senior House Republican said Wednesday that Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a page — now at the center of an intensifying federal investigation — should have been thoroughly pursued at the time.
As conservatives debated whether House Speaker Dennis Hastert should resign over his handling of the complaint, the House majority whip, Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said he would have handled it differently if he'd known about it. He was the acting majority leader when the complaint was raised.
Although he did not criticize Hastert, his remarks to reporters in Springfield, Ill., were no endorsement of the speaker's actions.
"I think I could have given some good advice here, which is you have to be curious, you have to ask all the questions you can think of," Blunt said. "You absolutely can't decide not to look into activities because one individual's parents don't want you to."
On the federal investigation into Foley's communications with teenagers in the congressional page program, acting U.S. Attorney Jeff Taylor for the District of Columbia told Hill officials to "preserve all records" related to the matter, according to a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Taylor's three-page letter, dated Tuesday, was sent to House counsel Geraldine Gennet, according to the Justice official. Such letters often are followed by search warrants and subpoenas, and Taylor's request signals that investigators are moving past initial assessments and closer to a criminal investigation.
Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., the congressman who sponsored the page at the heart of the furor, said Hastert "knew about the e-mails that we knew about," including one in which Foley asked the page to send his picture. But he quickly backed off that comment, saying he discussed the e-mails with Hastert's aides, not the speaker himself.
"I guess that's a poor choice of words that I made there," he told AP.
How do you pursue something like this? The parents didn't want the emails to be released. They didn't want an investigation and they said no crime was committed. What could Hastert legally do other than tell Foley to cease all communication?
Roy Blunt the earmark pork entitlement king speaks.
Roy - Your kid the Govenor Matt Blunt has more brains than you and they must have come from his mom's genes, so just shut up...
I'm a Missourian so I can tell you to shut up.
Or may be minority leader.
Is he a head banging take no prisoners arch-conservative whore that wants to be Speaker? Thats what this party needs.
I just listened to ALexander on State wide radio. He by far is best person explaining this.
However it is clear to me that the people involved with this are not in enough contact with each other. It is crazy. Little tiny innocent factual errors come in that can be made to look as something bad.
You would think with all the Lawyeres we have on Staff up there that someone would put cooridiante this better. However ROdney just said he hasnt talked to the leadership in days. Good grief
You tax bill, the War on Terrorism, the Border, your kids future, NSA bill pending in front of Congress, Judges, Spending, Jobs and the Economy, ALL the real issues that the next Congress will have to deal with will STILL be here and need a resolution a month from now when NO one even remembers Foley's name.
I wish they would all JUST SHUT UP -- and I do mean the Congress critters and the "pundits" who are suppose to be on OUR side.
Most of them don't even have the facts straight and they end up making it worse.
Was that on the Moon Griffon show? Moon's show does have a lot of statewide listeners.
He was just on. Actually ruth interviewed him(which is a nice change lol). Great interview.He let out the facts as clearly as anyone has. The problem is his morality and dencency will prob restrain him from getting on National TV to talk about it since his goal is get attention away from this poor kid on a national level.
By the way it as to our prior post, he alluded to the fact that he knows that some of this is Democrat payback for him becoming Republican
Gee the Dow Jones just cracked 11,800 for the 1st time in history. Think anyone will notice since they have this oh so important "Foleygate" to have hives over?
Rodney is definitely a good decent guy. I think it is a good thing that he is trying to explain some facts as he knows them to his constituents. People who are not Freepers and listen to main stream news need help in trying to understand what is going on with the Dem agenda. I'm sure Moon has a lot of Dem listeners too.
Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.) was just interviewed on our local radio station (in Reno). He discussed this subject, made some factual errors, and misspoke a couple of times in ways that made him sound bad.
He should have just kept his stupid mouth shut.
I agree...and I noticed that he said he would have done it differently...but, he was acting Majority Leader at the time of the complaint...
HMMMMMMM...then WHY DIDN'T HE??
BAH....Missouri PING!
Bingo. Imagine what it's like working in a place where everyone has their knives out for each other all the time.
I heard about this earlier .. this is not an investigation the Democrats really want
Who knows what the FBI will find
No, unfortunately. His son is a pretty good guy, however.
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