Posted on 10/04/2006 8:38:18 PM PDT by Jean S
The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide.
That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim.
The same source, who acted as an intermediary between the aide-turned-whistleblower and several news outlets, says the person who shared the documents is no longer employed in the House.
But the whistleblower was a paid GOP staffer when the documents were first given to the media.
The source bolstered the claim by sharing un-redacted e-mails in which the former page first alerted his congressional sponsor’s office of Foley’s attentions. The copies of these e-mails, now available to the public, have the names of senders and recipients blotted out.
These revelations mean that Republicans who are calling for probes to discover what Democratic leaders and staff knew about Foley’s improper exchanges with under-age pages will likely be unable to show that the opposition party orchestrated the scandal now roiling the GOP just a month away from the midterm elections.
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) yesterday called for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) to testify about what and when they knew of Foley’s contact with former pages (see related story).
House GOP leadership aides have said they would like to see investigations of Foley examine how the story became public. ABC News’s website first reported the e-mails just as Congress was about to recess for the election.
The explosive disclosures about Foley’s communications with teenage pages have overshadowed Republican legislative accomplishments during their final week in town. They have become the preoccupation of a capital press corps that has little else to write about now that Congress is in recess and Election Day is still a month away.
Republicans say the timing of the scandal is evidence of a political dirty trick orchestrated by Democrats. They have drawn comparisons to negative reports about President Bush that surfaced before the 2000 and 2004 campaigns.
Shortly before the 2000 election, it was reported that Bush had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, and before Election Day 2004, forged documents surfaced calling into question Bush’s National Guard service.
That Foley’s scandalous communications came to public light during Congress’s final week in Washington was largely determined by the media outlets which obtained the suspicious e-mails in the middle of the summer, said the person who provided them to reporters several months ago.
In an August 2005 e-mail exchange between Foley and a former page, given to reporters this summer, Foley asks the teenager his age, asks him to send a picture of himself, and describes his own work-out activities, including a 25-mile bike ride. The e-mails given to reporters included one sent by the page to a House staffer in which the page described Foley’s e-mail as “sick” and said it “freaked me out.” The page also informs the staffer that Foley asked what the teen wanted for his birthday.
The e-mails were alarming enough to prompt the page’s parents in the fall of 2005 to ask their son’s congressional sponsor, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), to take steps to stop Foley’s correspondence.
Alexander’s chief of staff then told aides in Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) office about the communication and showed the e-mails to Jeff Trandahl, clerk of the House. That fall, Trandahl and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Page Board, met Foley and told him to stop contacting the former page.
But while the e-mails were concerning enough to prompt this action, editors and reporters at various publications did not consider them remarkable enough to write about.
The person who provided the e-mails to several D.C.-based news outlets in July claimed to have no knowledge of who gave them to two Florida papers last year.
D.C.-based media organizations declined to report on the e-mails. But one, ABC News, reported on the e-mails last week after a Weblog, stopsexpredators.blogspot.com, published a few of the exchanges between Foley and the former page. But those blog-reported e-mails did not include correspondence between the page and a House aide in which the teen expressed anxiety about Foley’s intentions.
After ABC News disclosed the e-mails exchanged last year between Foley and a former page, it reported about much more sexually explicit communications between Foley and a different former page over an “instant messaging” (IM) software program in 2003.
The first Web report of the relatively tame e-mails appears to have prompted someone to share the explicit IM messages. After ABC News obtained those messages, in which Foley discussed sexual acts with the second former page, a scandal mushroomed on Capitol Hill, and Foley resigned.
The source who provided the e-mails that ABC News first reported on its blog, denied sharing the more explicit IMs.
So while the primary source of the e-mails which kicked off the scandal was a House GOP aide, the trigger of the news coverage was the weblog.
The creator of stopsexpreditors.blogspot.com is unknown. An interview request e-mailed to the site was not returned.
Maybe he didn't realize that IMs could be saved, but was positive that e-mails could be printed out and saved OR maybe the IMs weren't sent by Foley. Maybe the instant messages were just sent from his computer. Maybe the IMs were fabrications from the get-go. Who knows?
Hey, I love a mystery as much as the next person and speculating is free.
"October Surprise" was born in 1980.
Yeah. We know all about "longtime Republicans." The Rats have them stashed away for times like this ...
This is false. The key question, as the article later grudgingly acknowledges, is who is the source of the instant messages, and how was it they were ready to go the instant the story about the e-mails broke. That is where I smell a Rat!
This story by Bolton has been very carefully worded so as to be factually true, whil at the same time telling a lie.
The writer would seem to know that the "intermediary" he is referring to was not co-operating with and fronting for his 'source': no, the "intermediary" was BLACKMAILING his source.
That's why the life-long republican is part of the October surprise -- it's because he's been BLACKMAILED into doing so!!!
I think you may be on to the real explanation. It would explain why there is an FBI investigation that is not focusing on Foley.
UPDATE IV: The Hill’s Alexander Bolton claims to have a “source” that says that a former GOP staffer was the source of the emails to the media.
However, it should be noted that Alexander Bolton is:
“Prior to joining The Hill in 2000, Alexander Bolton was assistant to David Corn at The Nation magazine and interned at Roll Call. A native of Greenwich, Conn., he received his B.A. degree in philosophy from Princeton University”
So whose “the source”? “Fluff”…..
Even so, it still doesn’t answer the question of who “held the messages”, and who knew about their existance since July or even before, all things we are going to find out soon.
All this from “an assistant to David Corn”?
http://www.macsmind.com/wordpress/
You know, I don't believe a word anybody says about anything after this week.
But......for the record, Brian Ross said on Nightline tonight that NOBODY knew about the IMs until Friday afternoon after he posted his first story on his web page.
My, my, the "source" thought of everything, didn't they?
"Good morning, Brian. I'm a Republican but..."
As pointed out by other FReepers, this fiasco is now looking like an organized infiltration of gay sleepers into Republican staffs for neferious purposes - - - the whole thing is starting to unravel tonight and the (18+ year old) page at the center of the storm has hired bigtime criminal defense counsel. Gaygate is upon us.
I have since that time believed that the Senate refused to remove Clinton from office because of the "raw FBI material" in those files.
There are many more shoes to drop (but only on the Republican side or any dimocRAT who objects to tactics being used) I fear until Pubbies are brought to less than majority. If not this election, definitely '08.
Blackmail??
Thats what its looking like.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1713970/posts?page=190#190
That is a blockbuster of a thread, but there are several others too.
Just got done playing poker tonight with a friend of mine. Turns out his son was a roommate with the page that this whole thing is about. The papers and networks have been calling him all week but he is not talking. His father shared that:
The page was not neive and was "flaming" obvious about his preferences. He actively flaunted.
Second, there was no meeting with the pages to warn them about Foley.
All kinds of crap being spewed by the press.
Which page? The Alexander page or the one whose name was published today?
Plus the emails were suspicious but had little substance for anyone to go after Foley on. The media wouldn't even run them as a story. There is a constant blur between the emails and IM's.
This article in particular really made me suspicious. And even if the "victim" was 17 part of the time, is that under any applicable age of consent?
Not that I have seen, unless there are different laws for "Republicans."
Something stinks to high hell here.
And boy do I hate liberals and the fecklessness of republican politicians. Has anyone noticed that instead of blasting the dems and media for their double standards, it is now becoming openly stated in the media that republicans will suffer for scandals and democrats will not?
What have you been smoking? It appears there was blackmail? Where is your proof? Saying it doesnt make it true. I think the guy hired the lawyer to protect his privacy and help him in preparing his testimony if he gets called before the Ethics Committee or grand jury investigating Foley. Every body lawyers up these days. Dont read criminal guilt into his hiring a lawyer.
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