Foley and the Blame Game

Pardon me, but I smell something very peculiar in the way we have learned of the disgrace of Rep. Mark Foley.

The email scandal which led to the resignation of the Republican Congressman is reverberating throughout the capital and the nation, as Democrats attempt to capitalize on bad news for Republicans. The seamiest of the released emails, which Foley has not denied, are right up there with Rhodes Scholar and Illinois Democratic Congressman Mel Reynolds’ taped phone conversations lusting for 15 year old Catholic school girls in their uniforms.

But Democrats are attempting to make hay by alleging that the Republican leadership may have known about the inappropriate emails and covered them up for months. Their hope, no doubt, is to discourage turnout by disillusioned evangelical and other voters sensitive to moral issues. But the emerging background detail suggests that this is simply not the case, and that an attack strategy has been devised by parties anxious to damage the GOP and swing the coming election.

In July a blog appeared, designed it said to trace sex predators. Few posts were made in that month or the following month. All recounted years old stories. Then on September 18, the blog printed the fairly innocuous email exchange between Congressman Foley and an unnamed page.In this correspondence initiated by the former page, Foley asks the former page how he is after Katrina (the boy lived in Louisiana) and asked for a photo. Thus began the latest political kerfuffle which swirls through the final five weeks of the campaign. How likely is it that this site with virtually no readership , few posts and hardly any history or posts of interest suddenly receives this bombshell? I’d say slight. About as likely as Lucy Ramirez handing Burkett Bush’s TANG papers. Let’s track back what else we know of this story. Sometime last year a former page contacted the St. Petersburg Times with an exchange of emails between himself and Congressman Foley. In the words of the editor, they never ran the story. (The following has been realeased by the office of the Speaker of the House, but does not yet appear online at the time of this writing.)

In November of last year, we were given copies of an email exchange Foley had with a former page from Louisiana. Other news organizations later got them, too. The conversation in those emails was friendly chit-chat. Foley asked the boy about how he had come through Hurricane Katrina and about the boy’s upcoming birthday. In one of those emails, Foley casually asked theteen to send him a “pic” of himself. Also among those emails was the page’s exchange with a congressional staffer in the office of Rep. Alexander, who had been the teen’s sponsor in the page program. The teen shared his exchange he’d had with Foley and asked the staffer if she thought Foley was out of bounds.

There was nothing overtly sexual in the emails, but we assigned two reporters to find out more. We found the Louisiana page and talked with him.He told us Foley’s request for a photo made him uncomfortable so he never responded, but both he and his parents made clear we could not use his name if we wrote a story. We also found another page who was willing to go on the record, but his experience with Foley was different. He said Foley did send a few emails but never said anything in them that he found inappropriate. We tried to find other pages but had no luck. We spoke with Rep. Alexander, who said the boy’s family didn’t want it pursued, and Foley, who insisted he was merely trying to be friendly and never wanted to make the page uncomfortable.

So, what we had was a set of emails between Foley and a teenager, who wouldn’t go on the record about how those emails made him feel. As we said in today’s paper, our policy is that we don’t make accusations against people using unnamed sources. And given the seriousness of what would be implied in a story, it was critical that we have complete confidence in our sourcing. After much discussion among top editors at the paper, we concluded that the information we had on Foley last November didn’t meet our standard for publication. Evidently, other news organizations felt the same way.

Since that time, we revisited the question more than once, but never learned anything that changed our position. [b]The Louisiana boy’s emails broke into the open last weekend, when a blogger got copies and posted them online. Later that week, on Thursday, a news blog at the website of ABC News followed suit, with the addition of one new fact: Foley’s Democratic opponent, Tim Mahoney, was on the record about the Louisiana boy’s emails and was calling for an investigation. That’s when we wrote our first story,for Friday’s papers.

After ABC News broke the story on its website, someone contacted ABC and provided a detailed email exchange between Foley and at least one other page that was far different from what we had seen before. This was overtly sexual, not something Foley could dismiss as misinterpreted friendliness. That’s what drove Foley to resign on Friday.

So, the paper had nothing it could act on. But Foley’s opponent somehow got wind of the story which had appeared before only on a very new, utterly obscure blogsite and demanded an investigation. ABC then picked up the story and when it did , further anonymous sources with far more salacious and troublesome evidence appeared on the scene. What an amazing-and unlikely to me-turn of events. Like that paper, the Republican leadership only knew of the innocuous email exchange:

Late night Congressman Hastert said of the incident (in terms remarkably similar to the editor’s):

In the fall of 2005 Tim Kennedy, a staff assistant in the Speaker’s Office, received a telephone call from Congressman Rodney Alexander’s Chief of Staff who indicated that he had an email exchange between Congressman Foley and a former House page. He did not reveal the specific text of the email but expressed that he and Congressman Alexander were concerned about it.

Tim Kennedy immediately discussed the matter with his supervisor, Mike Stokke, Speaker Hastert’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Stokke directed Kennedy to ask Ted Van Der Meid, the Speaker’s in house Counsel, who the proper person was for Congressman Alexander to report a problem related to a former page.Ted Van Der Meid told Kennedy it was the Clerk of the House who should be notified as the responsible House Officer for the page program. Later thatday Stokke met with Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff. Once again the specific content of the email was not discussed. Stokke called the Clerk and asked him to come to the Speaker’s Office so that he could put him together with Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff. The Clerk and Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff then went to the Clerk’s Office to discuss the matter.

The Clerk asked to see the text of the email. Congressman Alexander’s office declined citing the fact that the family wished to maintain as much privacy as possible and simply wanted the contact to stop. The Clerk asked if the email exchange was of a sexual nature and was assured it was not. Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff characterized the email exchange as over-friendly.

The Clerk then contacted Congressman Shimkus, the Chairman of the Page Board to request an immediate meeting. It appears he also notified Van Der Meid that he had received the complaint and was taking action. This is entirely consistent with what he would normally expect to occur as he was the Speaker’s Office liaison with the Clerk’s Office.

The Clerk and Congressman Shimkus met and then immediately met with Foley to discuss the matter. They asked Foley about the email. Congressman Shimkus and the Clerk made it clear that to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and at the request of the parents, Congressman Foley was to immediately cease any communication with the young man.

The Clerk recalls that later that day he encountered Van Der Meid on the House floor and reported to him that he and Shimkus personally had spoken to Foley and had taken corrective action.

Mindful of the sensitivity to the parent’s wishes to protect their child’s privacy and believing that they had promptly reported what they knew to the proper authorities Kennedy, Van Der Meid and Stokke did not discuss the matter with others in the Speaker’s Office.

Congressman Tom Reynolds in a statement issued today indicates that many months later, in the spring of 2006, he was approached by Congressman Alexander who mentioned the Foley issue from the previous fall. During a meeting with the Speaker he says he noted the issue which had been raised by Alexander and told the Speaker that an investigation was conducted by the Clerk of the House and Shimkus. While the Speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynold’s recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution.

No one in the Speaker’s Office was made aware of the sexually explicit text messages which press reports suggest had been directed to another individual until they were revealed in the press and on the internet this week. In fact, no one was ever made aware of any sexually explicit email or text messages at any time.

It is not only the recent, unread blog spot breaking the story which raises my suspicions. The rest of the genesis of the story is as murky.

Brian Ross of ABC ran the story, beginning with the same “overly friendly” but not sexually suggestive email exchange and adding a series of instant messages dating to 2003 previously unseen by anyone in Congress between Foley and anonymous recipients said to be former pages. The Republican leaders, seeing the more damning correspondence, sought and got Foley’s resignation.

As soon as the ABC story ran, and organization called C.R.E.W., which said it had the original exchange which Hastert had heard of and the St Peterburg paper had seen, put them on their website .They said they’d earlier conveyed them to the FBI, were releasing them because of the ABC story, and asked for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the Republican leadership.It is abundantly clear to me that C.R.E.W. and ABC communicated and may have coordinated the release of this story.

One target of Republican criticism is Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the group that last year assisted former Rep. Chris Bell (D-Texas) in drafting an ethics complaint against DeLay, which resulted in an admonishment of DeLay from the ethics committee. At last week’s press conference, Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, said that DeLay should step down as majority leader.

From 1995 to 1998, CREW’s Sloan served as minority counsel for the House Judiciary Committee under Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). Before that, Sloan served as the nominations counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee under Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).

According to GOP research, Mark Penn, who had been a pollster for President Clinton, and Daniel Berger, a major Democratic donor, are on CREW’s board. Spokeswoman Naomi Seligman declined several requests to reveal the membership of CREW’s board, although she confirmed that Penn and Berger are members. Last year, Berger made a $100,000 contribution to America Coming Together (ACT), a 527 group that was dedicated to defeating Bush in the presidential election, according to politicalmoneyline.com, a website that tracks fundraising.

C.R.E.W. is one of four “public interest” organizations which the RNC has long identifed as major recipients of George Soros richly-funded Open Society Institute. It is backing the risible Wilson/Plame civil suit against Cheney and others.

Brian Ross of ABC News is the reporter behind the story that Rep. Dennis Hastert is being investigated by the Department Of Justice. Ross is sticking to his charges despite vehement denials from both the DOJ and Hastert himself.

Some may recall that Brian Ross has been involved in past journalistic controversies. Just last week, Mr. Ross reported he was tipped off by unnamed “senior federal officials” that his cell phone was tapped by NSA.

Last month, Ross was one of the first (if not the first) to report that Rush Limbaugh “had been arrested.” Reports which turned out to be greatly exaggerated, but which Ross never corrected.

In January, Brian Ross was the first to promulgate the claims of the self-proclaimed NSA whistleblower, Russell Tice. Ross treated Tice has a highly credible source even though Tice had been cashiered from the agency due to “psychological problems.”

ABC has not disclosed the names of the recipients of the instant messages which were sexually explicit, years old, and not seen by anyone else. We do not know how anyone but the recipients could have retrieved them. We do not even know if they are authentic. None of the recipients has come forward and identified himself. What we do know is that reputable media and the Republican leadership acted appropriately on the initial innocuous correspondence and could not proceed further in view of the parents’ demand that their son’s privacy be respected only to find months later just before the election that same correpondence showing up on an unlikely blog site and then almost simultaneously on ABC and on C.R.E.W.’s site. As for the demand that a special prosecutor be appointed, maybe Patrick Fitzgerald can be appointed. Then he can fail to ask ABC or C.R.E.W. how they got the correspondence, ignore their political motivations, conflate their partisanship with “whistleblowing”, not look for the sources of the later sexually explicit emails, and nab Hastert for forgetting when he went to the bathroom on the day he heard about the emails. Clarice Feldman is an attorney in Washington, DC. and a frequent contributor to American Thinker

wa, you are right. But to clarify, "the Democrats" didn't know anything, either. At least, not the Democrats in Congress, that we know of. I think the slime machine has learned to keep itself as far from elected leaders as possible.

Again, I refer back to the cell phone call (Boehner, et al.) recorded by the elderly Martin couple.

The democrats DID know.

The opponent of foley knew.

The DNC must have known and timed the report.

The leadership knew of C.R.E.W.'s work given their past delaycoordination.

Now we have pelosi replace with dukakis look alike Harman. The democrats have blood on their hands.

The democrats allow CHILDREN to be endangered in order to TIME THE STORY!!!!!

This is CRIMINAL!

Don't go so crazy there. One of the reasons I think Foley will only get probation if he's convicted of anything is that he didn't solicit anything, even in the IMs.

When they nailed Scott Ritter, they had to wait until he showed up at the rendezvous point.

"The evidence given in this article shows that the information which proved wrongdoing was new to the GOP."

Totally unacceptable for any business or government enterprise. If you have a complaint involving sexual harassment, or worse, an apparent predatory practice involving a minor you turn everything upside down to get to the bottom of it. The best excuse for the party leaders involved in this matter is that they were negligent in failing to exercise appropriate diligence. Worst, they failed to act consistent with the information uncovered.

I will not accept anything other than a moral standard that is appropriate to my values. I am not responsible for Democrats and perhaps you may not yet be fully awake to the seriousness of this matter.

"Now, what did they know and when did they know it?"

We are not responsible for them. If I have a predator in my family, I am responsible to deal with it. If we go down the road of trying to blame Democrats for a problem within our own ranks we enter into a moral relativism that becomes a slippery slope many conservatives will choose to avoid.

Perhaps the GOP should get rid of the log-cabin republicans; they do more harm than good. Let them go to the dim party!

"The democrats allow CHILDREN to be endangered in order to TIME THE STORY!!!!!"

Do you guys realize how naive you appear? Long enforcement uses sting operations all the time to try and nail Internet and sexual predators. Do you you really think there are a bunch of people out in the real world who are going to say it was unfair to catch him in such an underhanded way? The only option for conservatives is stand tall and be outraged by the predatory behavior. Not only is it the right moral choice, it is the only political option.

you are wrong. I have seen court cases where police will cut investigations short when there is someone in danger.

This is about what did the reporters know. Sitting on a story and allowing criminal predation to progress so a report can be timed is despicable.

The fact is that republicans handled the situation correctly once the INSTANT MESSAGES were revealed. This was not politically advantageous, but it was correct. (especially given how easy it is to fake IMs)

Republicans are doing fine, the MSM is in trouble.

Son (and I mean that in the most condescending way possible), it is "dealt with". What more is there to do? The evidence that we know of is out there. Law enforcement will subpoena everything and try to find more. And if it's there, they'll find it.

Again, one possibility that this brings up is that Democratic operatives are hacking into Congressmens' (and who knows who else's?) emails.

Here's a clue: That's a crime, too.

The article describes in painstaking detail how the GOP leadership took the matter very seriously, and investigated in an official manner the emails that were turned over to them and made a determination that they were weird but innocuous.

The sexually explicit IMs - as opposed to the emails - were not revealed until later.

First, Foley isn't an "employee".

Second, just try to fire an actual employee based on somebody saying that he sent a minor teenager unpleasant, but non-sexual (the parents made this crystal clear to the Congressman) emails.

Third, the parents didn't want them or the page to get dragged into this. They just asked for it to stop. Remember, without the parents, you have no evidence of anything and if you try to pursue it, they would be exposed and that's precisely what they didn't want.

The leadership acted consistently with what they knew. And you are acting consistently for someone who signed up in March of this year.

Welcome to FreeRepublic -- election edition.

"This is about what did the reporters know. Sitting on a story and allowing criminal predation to progress so a report can be timed is despicable."

Yes, and I can see the stories now, "Republicans in Denial." But, I have great confidence that is not going to be the response. We will hear a strong condemnation of the behavior no later than this afternoon from all levels.

There is only one option for Republicans and that is to condemn the behavior without qualification. If you want to lead the protest over a supposed sting operation, fine. But, don't think for a moment it is going to mitigate the outrage necessary to confront predatory practices involving adolescent youth at the heart of government.

you have to be specific as to when.

The IMs were revealed last week.
(exactly the day after the name could not be changed on the ballot)

48 hours later, foley was gone.

"The article describes in painstaking detail how the GOP leadership took the matter very seriously, and investigated in an official manner the emails that were turned over to them and made a determination that they were weird but innocuous."

I would happy if GOP leadership simply says we investigated and we missed some stuff. Now that additional information has come forward we have dealt with it in the most vigorous manner. On the other hand, to go down the road of arguing against the behavior of Democratic operatives is redundant. More important, it commits conservatives to the track of moral relativism that we so bitterly oppose. I do wish you would think about that.

I'm not talking about moral relativism. Moral relativism is "Gerry Studds got away with bedding willing pages, so Mark Foley should get away with sending them X-rated IMs."

That's garbage. Foley deserves to be in prison, not Congress.

The issue here is that Democrats knew he was a predator and instead of doing the responsible thing, they waited until it was politically convenient to report him.

They were playing politics with people's lives.

What's worse, they developed this information solely for politics, never intending to use it to help victims.

teh dems are gonna gnaw on this like a pit bull on an attackers arm. we won't see the end of this till after the election.

The GOP deserves it though. Regardless of how much anybody things the GOP leadership knew, it's pretty clear that somebody in the leadership knew Foley was trouble long before now, and they should have had him leave then, when a replacement could have been found. I'll reserve judgement on whether they thought this would blow over, but I'd like to see, in the future, anytime anything vaguely evil-sounding is dealt with then and there, nipped in the bud so to speak.

"The issue here is that Democrats knew he was a predator and instead of doing the responsible thing, they waited until it was politically convenient to report him."

Your statement is an excellent example moral relativism. In illustrating a wrong we attempt to mitigate it by advancing a comparative second wrong. Essentially, they are two wrongs that should stand alone. They are morally responsible to deal with their behavior. I (we) are responsible for ours. Regardless, of their behavior, it does not let me off the hook for mine.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.