Top La. Aide Testifies in Page Case

WASHINGTON Oct 16, 2006 (AP)— The House ethics committee Monday questioned the top aide in a Louisiana congressman's office, where a chain of events began that raised questions about Republican handling of ex-Rep. Mark Foley's approaches to male pages.

Royal Alexander, chief of staff to Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., testified in closed session. The two are not related.

Rep. Alexander's office last fall complained to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's staff about Foley's overly friendly but not sexually explicit e-mails to a former Louisiana teenage page the congressman had sponsored.

Royal Alexander said outside the ethics committee, "We've done what we should from the very beginning. I'm proud of our office and proud of our page."

Rodney Alexander has said the former page contacted his office last fall, saying Foley had asked about the teenager's age, then 16, and his birthday. Foley also requested a photo.

Foley resigned his seat Sept. 29 after he was confronted with more sexually explicit instant messages to other former pages.

According to previous statements, Royal Alexander contacted aides to Hastert last fall about the Louisiana page.

This timeline has triggered a major discrepancy, because Hastert has said that was the first time his staff heard about Foley's contacts. Foley's former chief of staff said he first contacted Hastert's top aide in 2002 or 2003.

Royal Alexander last fall didn't actually show the messages to Hastert's staff members, but described them and said the boy's parents wanted the contacts to stop.

Foley's rehab paid for by taxpayers

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- The U.S. House of Representatives clerk's office says ex-Rep. Mark Foley's alcohol rehabilitation program is being paid for by a taxpayer funded medical plan.

Salley Collins, a spokeswoman for the clerk's office, said the Florida Republican is covered by a "temporary continuation of coverage" program that is available to federal employees who leave or resign their positions, Capitol Hill Blue reported Monday.

"Most, if not all (lawmakers), have some coverage as far as rehabilitation for drug and alcohol," Collins said.

Collins said she could not release specific details of Foley's medical plan, but Pete Sepp, vice president of communications for the National Taxpayers Union, said Foley's healthcare benefits will be available for 18 months under the plan.

Foley resigned Sept. 29 and in early October wrote that he had checked in to a "renowned in-patient facility to address my disease and related issues." The former congressman's lawyer, David Roth, said his treatment would last 30 days.

How a Blogger Put Himself in the Middle Of Mark Foley Story

Mr. Kerr drew immediate scorn from some fellow denizens of cyberspace after exposing -- without independent confirmation -- the name of Jordan Edmund. Mr. Edmund, through his lawyer, has neither confirmed nor denied that he was the page who engaged in sexually explicit Internet chats with Mr. Foley. But, as a result of Mr. Kerr's assertions, Mr. Edmund's name has been news on every major television network in America.

Mr. Kerr's own life has come under uncomfortable scrutiny. His 11-year-old son's photo was posted by one blogger in Ohio who hoped to spook Mr. Kerr, whom he believed had acted unethically.

It has been a heady time for the unemployed Mr. Kerr. He says he had been fired from several jobs over the years -- installing car radios, working for a call center -- and was discharged from the Navy in 1993 after faking a suicide attempt. He volunteers that years ago he was arrested for burglary. These days, he is a stay-at-home dad, taking care of his two sons, the younger of whom is 3 years old. Mr. Kerr's wife supports the family with her job at a call center here. Mr. Kerr says he has never met a famous person or a member of Congress. "I need to get out of the house more," he says.

He spends most of his days looking after his kids, working on his blog and doing an online radio show. He hosts it three times a week from his bedroom, hoping to break into conservative talk radio.

Mr. Kerr got into the business in 2003 with an independently published newsletter called the "Passionate Conservative." After a few issues, he concluded that the newsletter was too expensive to print, so he turned his attention to his Web site, where he has expressed the opinion that the Iraq war isn't going as badly as the media claim and that the Dixie Chicks should stop criticizing President Bush.

Shortly after ABC News broke the story on the Foley emails, Mr. Kerr says he felt the mainstream media were doing a poor job of covering the subject. He set out, he says, in hopes of "exposing ABC News as liars" and proving that at least one former page who received inappropriate messages from the Florida congressman was over the age of consent.

"Even if he was 17, he wasn't a victim. ... Was it a joke?" Mr. Kerr asks. And was the alleged transcript of messages a political dirty trick? Though he asked such questions, Mr. Kerr hastens to add, he wasn't defending Mr. Foley, whom he calls a "scumbag."

Mr. Kerr's investigation began when he found a Web page loaded on ABC's Internet server that wasn't easily accessible by the public. It contained what he believed to be the AOL screen name of a page who received messages from the congressman. He accomplished the feat by typing in variations on the Internet address that linked to the Internet page that featured Mr. Foley's instant messages. By slightly altering the address, he stumbled upon an older version of the exchange, which contained the AOL screen name ABC thought it had deleted from its site.

With the help of another conservative blogger Mr. Kerr had met online who goes by the name MsUnderestimated, Mr. Kerr then found the AOL profile of the page he believes received the instant messages. It said the person's first name was Jordan but didn't list a last name. Searching through congressional-page Internet sites, Mr. Kerr found a photo of a dark-haired page beaming at President Bush. The page was identified as Jordan.

From there, Mr. Kerr and his friend began scouring Internet sites, looking for a surname. They eventually discovered Mr. Edmund's MySpace profile, which contained a photo of the same young man they had found on the congressional page Web site, along with detailed biographical information, such as where he went to school and whom he worked for, that seemed to track some of the information in the Foley instant messages posted by ABC. They also discovered that Mr. Edmund now lived in Oklahoma City and works for the gubernatorial campaign of Ernest Istook, a Republican congressman.

After connecting the dots, Mr. Kerr began emailing newspapers and prominent political bloggers on Oct. 3, hoping to make a big splash. He invited them to check out important news he promised to post the next day on Passionate America at 4 p.m.

He had not, however, contacted Mr. Edmund. Mr. Kerr says he called the Istook campaign, asked to speak to Mr. Edmund but didn't leave a message. He says he was getting ready to leave his apartment around noon on Oct. 4 to drive his rusty, gray Ford Tempo to Mr. Istook's campaign headquarters in downtown Oklahoma City when his laptop PC froze. When he rebooted, he discovered his investigation had been inadvertently published on his blog four hours ahead of time.

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