Posted on 09/30/2006 3:06:00 PM PDT by wjersey
Rep. Thomas Reynolds, head of the House Republican election effort, said he told Speaker Dennis Hastert after learning a fellow GOP lawmaker sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy.
Reynolds, R-N.Y., was told months ago about e-mails sent by Rep. Mark Foley and is now defending himself from Democratic accusations that he did too little. Foley, R-Fla., resigned Friday after ABC News questioned him about the e-mails to a former congressional page and about sexually suggestive instant messages to other pages. The boy who received the e-mails was 16 in summer 2005 when he worked in Congress as a page. After the boy returned to his Louisiana home, the congressman e-mailed him, and the teenager thought the messages were inappropriate, particularly one in which Foley asked the teen to send a picture of himself.
The teen's family contacted their congressman, Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who then discussed it with Reynolds sometime this spring.
"Rodney Alexander brought to my attention the existence of e-mails between Mark Foley and a former page of Mr. Alexander's," Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a written statement Saturday.
"Despite the fact that I had not seen the e-mails in question, and Mr. Alexander told me that the parents didn't want the matter pursued, I told the speaker of the conversation Mr. Alexander had with me," Reynolds said.
Reynolds added that Alexander also discussed it with the clerk of the House, and the congressman who oversees the page program, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill.
Shimkus has said he learned about the e-mail exchange in late 2005 and took immediate action to investigate.
Shimkus said Foley told him it was an innocent exchange. Shimkus said he warned Foley not to have any more contact with the teenager and to respect other pages.
Democrats charged Reynolds did far too little and said more digging should be done.
"Congressman Reynolds' inaction in the face of such a serious situation is very troubling, and raises important questions about whether there was an attempt to cover up criminal activity involving a minor to keep it from coming to light before election day," said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney.
New York Democrats hoping to unseat Reynolds blasted the congressman, saying they call into question the Republican's values.
"Mr. Reynolds knew about these allegedly inappropriate emails from a fellow congressman to a minor for months and didn't lift a finger," said Blake Zeff, a spokesman for the state Democrats.
What is relevent is that the boy Foley went after is underage and... well... a boy.
The article says that all Reynolds knew, and all he passed on to Hastert, was that a page was upset that Foley asked him to send him a photo. It does not appear that the IMs---the full extent of the problem---was known.
I, too, would be very surprised if Foley did nothing if he knew the full story. Denny Hastert strikes me as someone who would gladly throw the Foleys of the world under the bus without any hestitation whatsoever.
The head of the Republican Nat'l Comm. is a homosexual and the second-in-command at that org. is steadfast advocate of abortion.
When will they be resigning?
That was my first thought, but then I wondered: does that really make sense?
This is a safe district. Given enough time, as opposed to now, it would have been relatively easy to come up with a winning Republican candidate.
Hastert doesn't seem stupid enough to believe that something like this would not be exposed close to Election Day, leaving him/his party holding the bag.
All I can see from this article is that the initial reports were only about the page upset about Foley asking him for a photo, Foley gave them the spiel about needing a photo on file (which, early on, even many here on FR were arguing was more than plausible), and the leadership thought that was the end of it.
It would all be different if he had just trolled the internet hookup sites. Why did he have to go after pages at all? Dumb and dumber.
Gary Studds was messing with kids and the Dems re-elected him 6 more times.
Being gay is not a crime in the Republican Party, in spite of what the Democrats would have you believe. Being gay and claiming to be straight should be a crime anywhere, everytime.
Why would they gamble on this when the possibility of losing was very, very great?
This is a safe district and they could have come up with a winner given enough time. Foley could have resigned for something classic such as "to spend more time with his family," and even though this would have come out eventually, only REALLY STUPID people or people who DID NOT KNOW the entire story would manage this crisis this way.
Is that too small a sample to say "homosexuals generally mess with kids".
for starters, Hastert is a moron...hes in the leadership role.....thus why the party is in the shape its in today
You don't recall that the underaged boys part of the story was Barney's then boyfriend was getting male children from a local school and pimping their services to grown men out of the basement of Barney's D.C. house?
There were two MOC's messing with pages during that earlier scandal, Gerry Studds (D-MA) with a male page and Dan Crane (R-IL) with a female page. Mr. Newt demanded their EXPULSION, but in the end, the House settled for censure. Crane lost his bid for re-election; the reason Studds survived the entire thing was that the boy claimed they were both consenting adults at the time, (he had been 17), Studds had the indignant, "My private life is no one's business" thing and survived re-election by his constituents until he retired.
The articles also say Reynolds informed Hastert of the e-mails. At the same time neither knew of the Instant Messages, and that's where the sexual trolling comes in.
Other kinds of trolling occur when people have read the articles and then make statements about "Hastert knew" and "Reynolds knew".
Foley himself was a big-name sponsor of a bill that criminalized adults using the internet to make contact with children and convey sexualized messages.
Could start there.
I hope they hang him high.
And our own Kolbe in AZ who is retiring.
That's why we should have "moral" individuals voted into office in our Federal, State, City, & Local Governments. Of course finding them to run would be the biggest task since morality in this nation is almost taboo, it's already censored - i.e. NBC censoring parts of a kids program because it "might offend some". The program censored of some it's comments? "Veggie Tales". I guess this says it all, doesn't it! BUT, they find nothing wrong when: NBC doesn't hesitate to offend Christians by showing Madonna mocking the crucifixion of Christ. Neither do not mind offending Christians in their new program Studio 60 with a segment called Crazy Christians.
The emails have been semipublic knowledge for more than a year. Apparantly the IMs and knowledge of Foley's AIM handle just came to light in the past 48 hours.
What to do with emails like Foley's when they are written by someone you are responsible for is unclear.
It sounds like Hastert a) delegated responsibility, b) didn't ask too many questions, and c) was glad that the whole thing went away.
Most of us would have been no different.
The key thing is that Foley lied, repeatedly - this makes Hastert look worse than the facts actually justify.
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