The page who was sent the emails was 16, and the emails were just overly friendly, not sexually suggestive. No physical contact.
The page who participated in the IM exchange was 18 and legally an adult. The IMs were sexually explicit. Do you think this is still a problem ? Creepy, sick, but still legal.
Monica was an intern, a subordinate of her "partner". The 18yo was no longer a page, no longer a subordinate, as I understand the situation.
Monica was a worse scandal IMO.
I haven't seen all of the details of the messages and who sent what. But I don't believe for a second that a Congressman who has been exchanging explicit messages with an 18 year old page/former page, and has been caught exchanging unusually friendly messages with a 16 year old page, and who at least on one occasion showed up at the page dorm drunk late at night, was keeping his hands off any young men below 18 or any young men who were still in the page program. I just don't believe it. And if the DC age of consent for boys is a flat 16 (rather than with an age difference provision for 16-17 year olds), then he stayed within the letter of the law, at least as far as pages are concerned (since the minimum age for pages is 16). But again, I have a lot of trouble believing he wasn't up to other similar activities with boys below 16. When somebody is sufficiently out of control to do the things Foley is known to have done, they are simply out of control, and not carefully observing legal technicalities.