Posted on 10/04/2006 8:39:44 PM PDT by PhiKapMom
A former U.S. House page working on the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Rep. Ernest Istook may be a part of the scandal involving former Congressman Mark Foley, The Oklahoman has learned.
The former page, a Californian named Jordan Edmund, on Wednesday hired Enid attorney Stephen Jones to represent him, the attorney confirmed.
Jones would not say exactly why he was hired, but did say, “I understand the FBI and the House Ethics committee have an interest in the matter ... the allegations concerning Congressman Foley which have surfaced.”
Foley, a Republican from Florida, resigned abruptly on Friday after it was learned that he exchanged sexually explicit e-mails with former pages. The FBI is investigating.
Istook’s campaign manager, Chip Englander, who is also from California, declined comment Wednesday to an Oklahoman reporter.
However, Englander gave The Oklahoman a statement that was attributed to Istook.
The statement says, “The sad and sick behavior of Mark Foley was a total surprise to me when it was revealed. Law enforcement is doing its job, and I support that effort. Now we should all support and protect the victims, and they should not be hounded by the press.
“It was a complete surprise to learn this morning that one victim may be someone I know. Each one of the victims deserves their privacy. To every reporter I request, please have the decency to avoid making things worse for the victims, and just leave them alone. This happened years ago when the victims were minors.”
Reached at his home, Istook referred to the prepared statement.
Edmund’s name surfaced on Internet “blogs” that linked him to the instant message address used in communications with Foley.
One blogger got the instant message address from the Web site of ABC News, which has obtained the instant messages sent between Foley and a former page.
In the sequence of messages identified by the blogger, Foley tells the person to “strip down and get relaxed.”
It is not clear whether Foley’s other instant messages, including one in which he apparently conducted “instant message” sex with a person, were all to the same person.
Asked why Edmund needed an attorney, Jones said, “You read the blogs. You know why he needs an attorney.”
Jones, who represented Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in his murder trial in Denver, confirmed Edmund was a U.S. House page.
“I’ve been retained in the last several hours,” Jones said. “I’m still reviewing matters.”
Jones said the two met Wednesday in Oklahoma City.
Edmund had an Internet page on the popular MySpace Web site.
On that page, he identified himself as being 21 years old and said he had been attending college at the University of California at Berkeley. He said he was going to Oklahoma to be deputy campaign manager for Istook’s gubernatorial effort, the Web site stated.
Edmund registered to vote in Oklahoma in March, records show.
The House Ethics Committee is scheduled to hold a closed-door meeting this morning about the Foley matter.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, one of the 10 members of the committee, flew back to Washington on Wednesday for what he called an “emergency meeting.”
He said the committee today would not hear from witnesses but would set the parameters of the investigation.
Contributing: Staff Writers Joe Wertz, Bryan Dean, Jennifer Mock and Ryan McNeill
Copyright 2006
'big time' defense lawyers in Enid, OK don't cost as much as a rookie lawyer in D.C. You can get pretty far with $5000 to $10000 as long as you don't have to face charges.
PKM--
Why don't you just go over to blogger.com and start a blog with all this info? That way it will be accessible by those outside FR as well.
(Be sure to turn the comment function off, though!)
GREAT STUFF!
The kid seems to be a real opportunist, one of the attributes that he mentioned about himself was that he is the most insensative (sic) guys you will ever meet. Either the job just came up or he had an ulterior motive for that job, too.
If they (the Repubs) wanted Hastert out, c'mon, they know how to fire the guy behind the scenes.
Otherwise it's like the jerk who wants to be rid of his wife, so he kills her rather than divorcing her.
Istook definitely comes off as a dullard.
Believe me, this lawyer is mega rich. He used to have his stepson picked up every night by a driver in a Mercedes and drive him to the bars and pick him up in the wee hours of the morning and bring him home, to keep the kid from driving.
Great job of connecting the dots! Many thanks for directing me to your post.This entire "thing" smells to high heaven and as much as Soros and the Dems want to somehow appear above the fray, they're pulling a WELLSTONE'S FUNERAL; so the smear campaign is going to tarnish them at least as much, if not far more, than it has the perv Foley.
Go away.
Unbelieveable. More ties to the Istook office. I am sure glad that I didn't invest any money or my time in that campaign or I would have been really mad. Never liked his paid staff from outside the state. A lof of interns that worked for the Congressional office left to go elsewhere after the San Diego bunch showed up.
Last year it came out that a young campaign staffer embezzled money from his campaign and had done it in another state but they didn't check. From KTOK website:
Jerry Bohnen of Oklahoma City’s KTOK provided the story that a state prison inmate indicted for sending
a threatening letter to the president is the same person who embezzled from Rep. Ernest Istook's
congressional re-election campaign in 2004 and that's why he was in prison.
He needs an attorney to tell him to enter some kind of rehab quickly.
Substitute stupid for ignorant and I would have to say "ditto".
****
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0906/364718.html
Newspaper HR Director Faces Internet Sex Charges
Seriously, we are going away, again, so I would greatly appreciate being pinged to threads/replies. I won't have very much time to hunt threads down, on my own, and a ping will allow me to sort of keep up, while I'm away.
on his myspace page on another thread, he called himself a political operative!
The people in the pajamas make the BEST detectives.
; ~ )
I always loved soap operas....
Orville Redenbacher's on tomorrow's shopping list.
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