He is referring to the e-mail message requesting the picture that Foley sent to the ex-page in Louisiana, in response to which his family passed a request on that Foley send the ex-page no more e-mails.
The GOP leadership never saw this e-mail. All they knew was that Foley had sent a "non-sexual" e-mail to this ex-page, and that the ex-page's family had asked that Foley be told to send no further e-mails to him. Foley was told to send no further e-mails, and he did not.
IMO, this information, alone, did not warrant strong action against Foley, much less warrant forcing Foley to resign. (Whether there was further info available at the time that warranted stronger action remains to be seen).
This is in contrast to the instant messages Foley exchanged with the 18 year old ex-page in California. But there is no evidence that anybody in the Republican leadership knew about those instant messages before ABC released them a few days ago.
The GOP leadership new everything (or almost everthing) and choose to bury their heads in the sand instead of taking action so they would not loose control of the House in 2004.