Posted on 10/05/2006 6:33:28 PM PDT by Gribbles141
Mark Foley Emails Altered?
Now the Mark Foley story is getting weird. (Yes, I know it’s already weird, but this is weirder.) There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that Foley’s guilty of making advances to teenage boys—after all, he resigned—but there’s something very odd about the email messages being circulated by media and left wing blogs: Foleygate: Mark Foley emails altered.
Spoiliation of evidence is a felony in every state in criminal matters AND in Federal law in criminal matters.
PLEASE don't let this be a white wash.
PERP WALKS FOR ALL DEMOCRATS! DEVIANTS!
I've said it before, they are STOOPID!
By changing their format to FOX's, NBC could become the #1 network news station overnight.
NBC should TURN RIGHT!
Why am I not surprised.
Tinfoil time!!!!
http://stopsexpredators.blogspot.com/
Someone is posting there.
So they were faxed from a Kinky's Sweat Shop & Laundromat in Miami.
A left-winged front group.
The bio of the Executive Director of CREW
"Melanie Sloan, Executive Director
Melanie Sloan serves as CREW's Executive Director. Prior to starting CREW, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia, where, from 1998-2003, she successfully tried cases before dozens of judges and juries. Before becoming a prosecutor, Ms. Sloan served as Minority Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, working for Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) and specializing in crime issues.
In 1994, Ms. Sloan served as Counsel for the Crime Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by then-Representative Charles Schumer (D-NY). There, she drafted portions of the 1994 Crime Bill, including the Violence Against Women Act. In 1993, Ms. Sloan served as Nominations Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, under then-Chairman, Senator Joe Biden (D-DE). Prior to serving in Congress, she was an associate at Howrey and Simon in Washington, D.C. and at Sonnenschein, Nath and Rosenthal in Los Angeles, California. Ms. Sloan received her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Chicago and has published in the Yale Law and Policy Review, Legal Times, The Washington Post, and the San Diego Union-Tribune."
I hope you don't mind, I'm going to add the relevant portion of last night's CNN's Paula Zahn transcript to your thread. It's helpful background info, especially on CREW's involvement. And... It's astounding to me CREW's Executive Director Melanie Sloan would now accuse the FBI of wrongdoing in the Foley investigation.
_______________________________________________________
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/05/pzn.01.html
ROBERTS, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There's -- there's -- there's...
ZAHN: What can we confirm?
ROBERTS: There's so many layers, and the circle just keeps widening every day.
But here what we know at this point: 2005, former Florida Congressman Mark Foley sends e-mails to a 16-year-old Louisiana boy who had been a page in the House of Representatives. Soon after that, the boy contacts Congressman Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, who is the congressman who sponsored his application to be a page in the House.
Congressman Alexander is concerned enough about these e-mails that he contacts the boy and his parents.
ZAHN: Concerned enough, what does that mean? What did he see in this e-mail that was so troubling?
ROBERTS: E-mails that apparently were -- quote -- "overly friendly," which raised a red flag with him.
So, after Congressman Alexander talks to the boy and his parents, he starts to run things up the flagpole. The office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office is contacted in September of 2005. Alexander's chief of staff makes a call to a staff member in Hastert's office, informing him about the e-mail exchange, but doesn't really get into the details, the text of what the e-mails were all about.
All of that, then, is brought to the attention of the chairman of the Page Board, Representative John Shimkus of Illinois, and, as well, to the clerk of the House, who's responsible for the page program.
Shimkus then calls a meeting with Foley. He gets together with Foley and the clerk of the House. They meet with Foley and say, to avoid any -- any appearance of impropriety here, and at the request of the boy's parents, you should stop sending these e-mails. Foley claimed all the time that the communications simply were innocent. And soon after that, a staff member for Dennis Hastert is told that corrective action had been taken. They believe it's all cleared up at that point.
ZAHN: But you now got a former congressional aide who has come out and said that Congressman Hastert knew about this long before fall of 2005.
ROBERTS: Yes. And here's where the story takes a real divergence and gets deep into the realm of he said/she said.
Kirk Fordham, who was the chief of staff to Congressman Foley up until 2004, and just resigned this week as chief of staff to Congressman Tom Reynolds, who's also the head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, said he informed Hastert's office while he was working for Foley -- so, this would have been before early 2004 -- about these concerning communications -- he called them worrisome conduct that Foley was -- was demonstrating toward these pages -- and asked for people at the highest leadership, the highest levels of the House, to intervene.
Now -- now, here's a really interesting piece of information coming from Fordham, because Hastert claims that he only ever learned of the content of these e-mails from Congressman's Reynolds' office in the spring of 2006.
And, for what it's worth, Hastert's chief of staff, who apparently was the one who was informed by Fordham, came out on Wednesday and said, anything that Fordham has said about this didn't happen.
ZAHN: Meanwhile, the House speaker is saying: I'm not going anywhere. I'm not resigning. And, oh, by the way, it's Democratic...
(LAUGHTER)
ZAHN: ... political operatives out there that withheld the dumping of these e-mails until a real crucial time, leading up to a midterm elections.
ROBERTS: Yes, blame the Democrats.
But, if Republicans wanted to get this off the radar screen, they could have come out with the content of the e-mails a year ago, at least a year ago, taken corrective action back then, and everybody would have forgotten about it by now.
ZAHN: John, thanks so much.
We're going to bring in the rest of our "Top Story" political panel right now, congressional correspondent Dana Bash, back with us from the Hill, chief national correspondent John King in our Washington bureau, and, of course, John Roberts, still sitting here side by side on the set with me.
Good to see all of you. So, Dana, let's talk about Speaker Hastert's allegation, that, in some way, Democratic operatives and ABC News are behind the dumping of the documents, even going so far to say that Bill Clinton had something to do with this. Is there any proof of that?
BASH: No, there isn't any proof of that.
And the -- the speaker's office is saying that they -- they haven't been able to back that up. He also went after George Soros as well. George Soros, in the last campaign, did a lot of funding for Democratic causes and campaigns.
Essentially, what he is trying to do, and what he did today, Paula, as you mentioned, is take it to a whole 'nother level, is throw red meat to the Republican base. He even said today, point blank, that, when the base finds out who's feeding this monster, they're not going to be happy.
So, he's trying to -- to -- to say: Look, don't be mad at me. You know, it -- it's not necessarily us. It's the -- the Democrats who are trying to raise this at this time, in order to -- to hurt us in the election.
Having said that, I talked to several Republicans today, who said that might be a good argument, but it shouldn't be coming from the speaker himself. That really is not necessarily going to play well, especially with some conservatives, who say: Look, the bottom line is, you didn't do enough to -- to protect young boys, essentially, on Capitol Hill.
ZAHN: Sure.
BASH: And that's what matters here.
ZAHN: And -- and, John King, what about that? Because that's the key issue here, the issue of accountability, and whether the speaker of the House knew about it last year, or three years ago, as some aide has suggested. They can't completely bury that issue, can they?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, they can't, Paula.
You hit it on the head with the word accountability. The way a senior Republican strategist put to me earlier today was, the masses had gathered in the court a few days ago, looking for a body. They wanted the speaker to say: I found out my chief of staff did something wrong. Somebody on my staff screwed up. He's fired.
They haven't gotten that body from the speaker. And the way this strategist put it is, now, they're so impatient, they want the body. They want the speaker himself to go.
Even what the speaker did, even though there's a great affection for the speaker in the Republican Party, they simply say, no one has been held accountable. Somebody knew. Somebody did something wrong. That person needs to be held accountable. Who is it?
The Republicans say the speaker hasn't done enough yet.
ZAHN: We don't really know who it is, based on -- on your reporting, John, do we?
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: I mean, it's all over the place about who knew what, when.
KING: Well, but that's the problem. The facts are going to take some time to sort out. John Roberts was just talking about it.
Either the speaker's chief of staff is not telling the truth, or Mr. Foley's former chief of staff, Mr. Fordham, is not telling the truth. We don't know who is doing that yet. It will take at least a few weeks for the Ethics Committee to investigate, probably months for the FBI to investigate.
And guess what? There is an election a little more than a month from now. The perception has taken hold that the leadership didn't handle this right. Anyone can define this any way they want. That's the problem for the speaker.
ZAHN: So, does this become a defining issue for the midterm elections, or do Americans really care?
ROBERTS: Well, it certainly is the issue for this week, and probably into next week as well.
Whether or not the Republicans can get it off the radar screen and get back to the issues of -- of the war on terror, economy, taxes, national security, that type of thing...
ZAHN: How could they get it off this in a -- in a week or two?
ROBERTS: Well, you know, America has got a very short attention span.
A lot of it also hinges on what happens with Hastert. And -- and, you know, what John King said is -- is true among some Republicans. But the opposite is true among other Republicans. They're beginning to look like the Democrats. There's so many different opinions in the Republican Party.
One senior -- one senior strategist I talked to today said the Republicans never get credit for sacrifice, not from DeLay, not from Newt Gingrich, not from Trent Lott. So, they don't want Hastert to go. They think that that would harm the party, that the party is weaker without these people who have resigned. And, so, why should Hastert go, they say?
The trick is now, in the coming weeks, is to attack, attack, attack, and not -- quote -- "capitulate to a mob."
ZAHN: Well, we saw a preview of that today, didn't we? ROBERTS: We did.
ZAHN: John Roberts, John King, Dana Bash, thank you -- part of the best political team on TV.
Beyond the political fallout from the Foley scandal, a criminal investigation is under way, as John King just mentioned. Coming up next: why the FBI wasn't on the case months ago.
And millions of talk radio listeners are chatting about the scandal. Coming up, just how angry is conservative America? We will check the pulse.
____________________________________________________
COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Another "Top Story" we're following tonight: the bloody streets of Iraq. Will today's surprise visit from a top U.S. official do anything to stop the violence?
Our "Top Story" coverage of the spreading scandal on Capitol Hill continues now.
Tonight, government sources confirm the FBI has been talking to pages beyond just the initial two that we have previously talked about. And the pages describe electronic conversations in which former Congressman Mark Foley talked about sexual acts.
Justice correspondent Kelli Arena has the very latest on that for us tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The e-mails and instant messages sent by former Congressman Mark Foley may be disgusting, but not necessarily illegal.
MARK RASCH, FORMER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT PROSECUTOR: You know, as a general rule, we prosecute these kind of cases when there's real danger to the child. Mere speech probably doesn't rise to that level.
ARENA: Government sources say prosecutors are looking at the evidence, but still have not launched a full criminal investigation.
ALBERTO GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Let us get the facts, before we make, you know, an announcement about -- about possible crimes. That would be great.
ARENA: The law is by no means clear.
First, it's not a federal crime to have sexually explicit conversations with children over the Internet. That's because the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that it's free speech, protected by the Constitution.
To prove a crime, investigators would need more than just talk. They would have to uncover evidence that Foley actually tried to get a minor to meet him for sex.
RASCH: You have to engage in some kind of an affirmative act towards meeting him, buying a plane ticket, arranging a place to meet, something like that. And it has to be explicit.
ARENA: According to government sources, at least one former congressional page alleges Foley discussed the possibility of getting together to engage in a sexual act. We do not know whether he has the documentation to back up that claim.
But, as shocking as that sounds, even that isn't a legal slam- dunk. The age of consent in D.C. is 16, and all of the pages in question were at least that old. If any of the pages were not in D.C. at the time of the e-mail exchanges, then state laws may apply. And, in some places, the age of consent is higher. Investigators continue to interview former pages and others who knew Foley, including his former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham.
TIMOTHY HEAPHY, ATTORNEY FOR KIRK FORDHAM: He will continue to be completely forthcoming. But because there's an ongoing investigation, he can't comment any farther.
ARENA: And discussions continue regarding access to Foley's computer and other files in his Capitol Hill office.
(on camera): But even that isn't straightforward. Now that Foley is no longer a member of Congress, one of the issues is who owns that computer and who can give consent for a search.
Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: So, even now, the FBI's investigation is only, as you can see, into its first stages. And that raises a very big question: Why didn't the FBI get involved months ago, when it got some of the questionable e-mails from Mark Foley to an ex-page, the source, a government watchdog group.
Investigative correspondent Drew Griffin has that angle for us tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a copy transcript of the now famous e-mail sent to the FBI on July 21, 2006.
According to the FBI, the exchange between a congressman and a page didn't rise to the level of a crime. And the FBI says its investigation was hampered because the group that provided the e-mail wouldn't name the page and edited the messages.
That group's president, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Melanie Sloan, says the FBI is wrong.
MELANIE SLOAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON: I would call that a lie, in fact.
On July 21, 2006, I sent to the FBI the e-mails. They were not redacted in any way, like they're claiming now. The kid's name is on the e-mail, his full name and his e-mail address, as well as the name of the congressional staffer to whom he was sending the e-mails.
GRIFFIN: Sloan is president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a group that's been criticized for being anti- Republican. Conservatives charge that CREW and its Democratic supporters held back the memo until just before November's election.
Sloan, a former prosecutor, says she sent the e-mail to the FBI as soon as she got it, because she was concerned for the safety of the pages.
(on camera): Did this rise to the level of something you thought needed to be investigated?
SLOAN: It absolutely did. The statement that the -- the e-mails themselves didn't -- didn't contain criminal activity right on the face of them, that's true. There's nothing sexually explicit in the e-mails themselves. The problem with the e-mail is that they suggest criminal activity. They suggest that this is a man who might be involved in making improper sexual advances toward minors.
We thought it was very important that the FBI take a look at these and start investigating. But, then, we found out this past Monday, because the FBI announced it was going to start a preliminary investigation, that they must not have engaged in any investigation over the past couple of months.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): CNN asked other law enforcement agencies what action they might have taken based on the initial e-mails.
The New York police told CNN: "In principle, a complaint such as the one that was lodged against Representative Foley, for example, from a parent would result in an online investigation. That might have included having a police officer pose as a minor to set up a sting online."
The Peachtree City Police Department in suburban Atlanta specializes in tracking down suspicious e-mails adults send to children, aiming to arrest would-be predators.
JIM MURRAY, PEACHTREE CITY, GEORGIA, POLICE CHIEF: We issue subpoenas for their -- for their e-mail address and who they are and who they're registered with, and then we find them.
GRIFFIN: The FBI declined to comment on camera to CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: Also declining to comment, Paula, was the actual agent who got that e-mail back in July. CNN learned the name of that agent and called her up, and asked her to comment. We didn't get a call back from her yet. But government sources say three squads here at the FBI, including the cyber squad, had access or saw that e-mail, and apparently, Paula, did nothing.
ZAHN: Well, let me ask you this. Do we know if the FBI followed up at all with this watchdog group?
GRIFFIN: According to Melanie Sloan, the president of CREW, the only response they got from the FBI when they sent over the e-mail was, thank you very much. There was no follow-up.
And, again, Melanie Sloan says that e-mail contained the full name of everybody involved.
ZAHN: All right, Drew Griffin, thanks so much.
We are going to move on now -- more "Top Story" coverage in just a moment.
___________________________________________________
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: The Mark Foley page scandal has Republican leaders on the offensive.
Our "Top Story" coverage turns now to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's full-court press to try to shore up the conservative base by blaming liberals and the news media for, as he suggests, leaking the damaging Foley e-mails this month.
Here's what Hastert told "The Chicago Tribune": "When the base finds out who is feeding this monster, they are not going to be happy. The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by liberal activist George Soros."
Financier George Soros has denied Hastert's accusation. Hastert has been making the rounds on conservative talk radio shows.
And to learn how their listeners are responding, we called in a "Top Story" panel from conservative talk radio, Lars Larson, host of "Right on the Left Coast" from Portland, Oregon, Neal Boortz, whose syndicated columnist talk show airs from Atlanta, and, in Seattle, syndicated talk show host Michael Medved.
Glad to see all of you.
LARS LARSON, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Thank you.
ZAHN: I'm going to start with you, Michael, since I introduced you last.
Are you going to tell me tonight that your listeners really think that Bill Clinton and a bunch of Democratic operatives are responsible for leaking these e-mails and that that the House leadership shares no accountability here with their actions?
MICHAEL MEDVED, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: No, I'm not going to tell you that.
But I am going to tell you, the base is extremely angry, and the listeners are extremely angry, at the timing of this whole thing, which is very suspicious. When it becomes clear that the FBI and "The Saint Petersburg Times" and "The Miami Herald" and ABC News heard about this almost a year ago, and then decided to hold it, to hold the story until a month before the election, that's highly suspicious.
ZAHN: OK.
(CROSSTALK)
MEDVED: ... there is a Democratic pattern.
ZAHN: Hang on. Let me ask you this.
Do your listeners not accept what some Republicans have told me today, that the Republicans, if -- if they didn't know about this a year ago -- someone is even suggesting they knew about this three years ago -- they could have gotten ridden of -- they could have gotten rid of this. They could have defused it by approaching it then.
Lars?
LARSON: They could have gotten rid of it, if they had known about it.
But the e-mails they had been shown were relatively innocuous.
(CROSSTALK)
LARSON: And for all those people who say, well, they should have investigated further, that's ridiculous. We don't go probing into people's personal lives that way, not if they have done nothing wrong.
ZAHN: Neal, how do your listeners feel about that?
NEAL BOORTZ, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, first of all, this libertarian is proud to be on the air with those two conservatives.
(LAUGHTER)
BOORTZ: But, for one thing, my listeners, yes, they do think that there's an element of a little bit of Democratic chicanery with the timing of this thing.
But, at the same time, they also believe that, if the Republican leadership had grabbed this thing a year ago, or whenever they first found out about these e-mails, and had handled it then, instead of worrying about saving a seat in Florida, that this whole thing wouldn't have happened in the first place.
ZAHN: All right. But -- but, Neal, you heard what Lars just said.
They didn't have the goods. They didn't know what the tone of these e-mails would turn out to be, or these I.M. messages.
BOORTZ: Oh, wait -- wait a minute. Wait a minute. Dennis Hastert is an educator. I believe he has a masters in education.
Now, are you going to tell me that, in any school in this nation, if you find out that one of your teachers is sending e-mails to 16- year-old students, saying, "Hey, how about sending me a picture?" especially if you knew that teacher was gay, that you're not going to look a little bit further into the situation?
I'm sorry. I'm not buying the fact that there weren't red flags flying all over the story a year ago.
ZAHN: All right, but I've got to tell you Neal, some people listening to you are thinking, making this enormous leap and it's not fair just because someone is gay or perceived as gay, even though he wasn't out of the closet at this point.
(CROSSTALK)
LARSON: And Paula, if I may jump in here?
BOORTZ: It won't be the first time people thought I wasn't fair.
MEDVED: OK, but I think what is fair is to recognize that one of the charges against the Republican Party has been that we are homophobic, that we're always on witch hunts against gays. Trying to imagine what would have happened if one of the very few gay Republicans in Congress, who by the way had never publicly acknowledged that he was gay -- if all of the sudden there was a full investigation and an announcement and people are looking, people would have screamed bloody murder, the log cabin Republicans and the ACLU.
And people who said you're violating Mark Foley's rights. Why should he be under special suspicion just because he's gay? I think he got kid glove handling precisely because he was gay.
LARSON: Medved's right. He's absolutely right that he got kid glove treatment because of that. Most people these days are afraid to question somebody's sexuality if they're gay or who they're looking at for fear of hitting that stereotype. But who we really ought to be focusing on is who held this information back. Somebody has known for a long time that this particular former congressman was a danger to kids and didn't bring it forward until it worked well for the Democrat Party. And that's the only group it works well for.
ZAHN: A very quick closing thought from all three of you because a former congressional aide to Mark Foley said that the House leadership had this information as long as three years ago -- Michael Medved?
MEDVED: Well they didn't have information about sexually explicit material. The "New York Times" on the front page today interviewed Mr. Kirk Fordham and he said specifically no, he didn't tell Hastert, Hastert had no way of knowing that there had been a specific sexual come-on on the e-mail or on any other forum.
ZAHN: Neal?
BOORTZ: I think that what's bothering a lot of my listeners is that the Republicans are usually or purport to take the high moral ground are acting like Democrats.
ZAHN: Ouch, Lars.
LARSON: 20-20 hindsight to say we said something about him. Yes, we all had suspicions. The fact is, if somebody didn't bring forward this specific information, the House leadership didn't have the information to act on, it's unfair to now say you should have known that he was pervert because he was gay and had too much interest in young boys.
ZAHN: Well, I hate to leave it on that inflammatory note, but I've got to. Lars Larson, Neal Boortz, Michael Medved, thank you all."
BUMP!!!
----
MEDVED: OK, but I think what is fair is to recognize that one of the charges against the Republican Party has been that we are homophobic, that we're always on witch hunts against gays. Trying to imagine what would have happened if one of the very few gay Republicans in Congress, who by the way had never publicly acknowledged that he was gay -- if all of the sudden there was a full investigation and an announcement and people are looking, people would have screamed bloody murder, the log cabin Republicans and the ACLU.
And people who said you're violating Mark Foley's rights. Why should he be under special suspicion just because he's gay? I think he got kid glove handling precisely because he was gay.
LARSON: Medved's right. He's absolutely right that he got kid glove treatment because of that. Most people these days are afraid to question somebody's sexuality if they're gay or who they're looking at for fear of hitting that stereotype. But who we really ought to be focusing on is who held this information back. Somebody has known for a long time that this particular former congressman was a danger to kids and didn't bring it forward until it worked well for the Democrat Party. And that's the only group it works well for.
Thanks for the ping, Ernest!
"Bumpus Maximus...oh yeah, emails have been forwarded around, recopied and re-emailed to make them look like actual emails from long ago.
Then faxed to make them look more realistic....
This whole thing stinks."
Sounds like, the Rat election coup planners have hired Blater and Mapes to be their consultants. They never learn do they, and that is the reality of their mental illness.
Who's "they"?
"BOMBSHELL Reported tonight on Paula Zahn on CNN (Please ping away) -
According to CNN what the FBI said - The FBI said the emails provided by CREW had the Page’s name redacted and made following up impossible. They also said CREW edited the emails. So we have charges by the FBI that CREW tampered with the evidence."
KCVL, here is CREW, the rectum of George $oreA$$, doing what they do so well as a rat rectum.
""Fake but Queer"
Sounds perfect for the Marxist Homosexual Lunatic Rat Activists who dreamed up this latest wet dream and tried to coup another election.
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