House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is swarmed by reporters after discussing Medicare and prescription drugs at the Sunrise Senior Center, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2006, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Mitchell)
Posted on 10/04/2006 11:59:12 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department ordered House officials to "preserve all records" related to disgraced Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record)'s electronic correspondence with teenagers, intensifying an investigation into a scandal rocking Republicans five weeks before midterm elections.
The development came as a congressional aide who counseled Foley to resign last week submitted his own resignation Wednesday. "I never attempted to prevent any inquiries or investigation," Kirk Fordham said in a statement.
Fordham was once Foley's chief of staff. At the time of his resignation he had been serving in the same capacity for Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., a member of the GOP leadership who has struggled to avoid political damage in the scandal's fallout.
Republicans have been struggling to put the scandal behind them, but another member of the leadership, Rep Roy Blunt of Missouri, said pointedly during the day he would have handled the entire matter differently than Speaker Dennis Hastert did, had he known about it.
"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."
Foley resigned last week after he was reported to have sent salacious electronic messages to teenage male pages. He has checked into an undisclosed facility for treatment of alcoholism, leaving behind a mushrooming political scandal and legal investigation.
Acting U.S. Attorney Jeff Taylor for the District of Columbia sought protection of the records in a three-page letter to House counsel Geraldine Gennet, according to a Justice official speaking on condition of anonymity.
Such letters often are followed by search warrants and subpoenas, and signal that investigators are moving closer to a criminal investigation.
At the same time, FBI agents have begun interviewing participants in the House page program, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. The official declined to say whether the interviews were limited to current pages or included former pages.
Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos stressed that the investigation is still preliminary.
Fordham played a key role in fast-developing events late last week. Initially, Foley was reported to have written overly friendly — not sexually explicit — e-mails to a former Capitol page. A day later, ABC news followed up with a report that said the Florida lawmaker had also sent sexually explicit instant messages to at least one other male page.
He said earlier this week he asked Foley about the sexually explicit instant messages, and the congressman confirmed they were probably his.
"Like so many, I feel betrayed by Mark Foley's indefensible behavior," he said. He blamed Democrats for seeking to make a political issue of the matter in Reynolds' re-election campaign, "and I will not let them do so."
There were signs of concern among Republicans, as well.
Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) of Arizona called for a group of former senators and others to investigate how the House handled the affair.
"We need to move forward quickly and we need to reach conclusions and recommendations about who is responsible," McCain said during a campaign speech for Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record) in Rhode Island. "I think it needs to be addressed by people who are credible."
Some other Republicans rallied to the speaker. The chairmen of two coalitions of social and fiscal conservatives in Congress said he should not step down. "Speaker Hastert is a man of integrity," Rep. Mike Pence (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind., and Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., said in a joint statement.
Rep. Rodney Alexander (news, bio, voting record), 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.
Hastert has insisted he not know about the e-mails that were discussed with his staff.
Alexander said in an interview he first took up the matter after receiving press inquiries in November, when he told Hastert's staff and the parents of the 16-year-old boy who received the e-mails. The parents wanted the correspondence stopped but apparently did not want to take the matter further.
After a second round of press inquiries in the spring, Alexander said, he again notified the family and discussed the e-mails with the new majority leader, John Boehner of Ohio, on the House floor during a vote.
Alexander said Boehner turned first to Reynolds, the architect of the Republican midterm election strategy.
"I went to Boehner before Reynolds," Alexander told AP. "He sent Reynolds to me to talk about it. Within a minute Reynolds and I were talking."
Boehner and Reynolds have both said they had spoken with Hastert about a complaint concerning a former page from Louisiana last spring, after Alexander told them about it.
The uproar that followed Foley's resignation has enveloped Republicans who were already at risk at losing control of Congress in elections five weeks away.
Conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie was among those who called for Hastert to step down. "The fact that they just walked away from this, it sounds like they were trying to protect one of their own members rather than these young boys," Viguerie said on Fox News.
Hastert has he would not quit.
Alexander defended Hastert on Wednesday, as well as his own response.
"Hey, what else was I supposed to do?" Alexander asked. "I was very uncomfortable even talking to somebody in the speaker's office."
___
AP writers Laurie Kellman in Washington, Marus Kabel in Springfield, Mo., and Michelle Smith in Providence, R.I., contributed to this story.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is swarmed by reporters after discussing Medicare and prescription drugs at the Sunrise Senior Center, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2006, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Mitchell)
I can hardly wait to see what bubbles out of the Clinton WarRoom Cauldron late in the '08 election cycle. ;-)
"I guess that's a poor choice of words that I made there," he told AP."
If ALL the Republicans would quit talking to the MSM then there would be no "poor choice of words". People have already made up their minds on whom they want to vote for so no matter what it won't make any difference unless they talk their way out of votes. As long as the GOP shuts up they will maintain the majority.
He's been around many years, pre-Reagan, one of the founders and facilitators (fundraising) of the success the conservative movement and Republicans have had since Reagan was elected.
Some will characterize him otherwise but he has done a lot in the past to help fund and get the conservative message out..
Who is the page/intern standing to right of Pelosi? Gee, doesn't anyone up there dress appropriately?
Voting Booths 11/07/06:
Gas prices, Gas Prices, Wall Street, Wall Street, Terrorism, Terrorism.
Foley who????????
She's got several harrassment complaints going. For some reason, men keep staring at her chest.
You have to ask yourself what would happen if a Speaker Pelosi found out something like this about a House Democrat.
Pelosi would have gone to the ex pages and blackmailed them into signing affidavits that nothing happened. If the ex pages refused then their pets would start to disappear and they would find themselves out of school, unable to keep a job and maybe a suicide. A typical "Bimbo Eruption" situation.
That would not be you, McCain. And btw, where does a senator get off demanding an investigation of the other house. Perhaps the House should start calling for an investigation of McCain and his campaign finance reform which exempts tribes which, big surprise, donate alot to him. Crook, thy name is McCain.
All they had to do in the Jefferson case was get approval from the Speaker. Instead they got a judge drunk (or drugged), had him write a phoney warrant, and then they did a blackbag job.
It was an unprecedented attack on the Congress. Ultimately these guys will find their careers in Washington are dead in the water, but I think they should be punished sooner than that.
This is what you get when you bring Mexican Federale standards into the US ~ the first thing that happens is a latin American style coup attempt.
He used to have a first class mind. I watched the interview and it looks like poor Richard is not long for the world of those "running loose".
Lets look at barbara Mukulski's emails to Hillary.
Lets look at Babs Mikulski's emails to Pelosi, those eyes of hers didnt pop for nothing.
Right Toby. But it does not help that the Quisling's over at National Review are pounding on it hard also.
I think there will be ramifications for those like Larry Kudlow and Jonah Goldberg for not supporting the GOP after the elections. They need to STFU and write about the real issues that matter.
If the DEMS manage to control the House, Patriotism in this Country will sink to all time low, and John McCain better get out their and support Haesert or his White House ambitions will be finished.
...~sigh~
A lot of the Conservative publications will keep this going because they honestly feel the GOP needs to lose to teach them a lesson. Just the fact that it's a gay GOP and the weirdness around it should be quite enough lesson for the GOP to move back to family values and national security issues.
Why can't you see that it's so unusual for a federal police officer to raid a Congressman's office on Capitol Hill that it had NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE?
This was a coup attempt.
It must be punished and Hastert had best get on with it. He's being distracted by homosexual tiffs and cruising when he should be about the people's business.
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