GOP congressman says House leaders should step down if knew about Foley and didn't act. Bush Admin. refuses to investigate Foley case.

The latest from the New York Times, tomorrow's story:

1. Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) says any House GOP leader who knew about Foley and didn't act should step down.

Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, said any leader who had been aware of Mr. Foley’s behavior and failed to take action should step down. “If they knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership,” Mr. Shays said.

2. GOP campaigns who took money from Foley are being asked to return it.

In another example of the potential political consequences of the Foley case, the opponent of Representative Deborah Pryce of Ohio, the fourth-ranking House Republican, called on Ms. Pryce to return $5,000 in aid she received from Mr. Foley. Mr. Foley, who served on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, also gave at least $100,000 to the party campaign committee in July.

3. Taking the lead from House Republicans, Bush Administration refusing to investigate child sex predator, even though the FBI was given copies of the emails by CREW back in July.

At the Justice Department, an official said that there was no investigation under way but that the agency had “real interest” in examining the circumstances to see if any crimes were committed.

CREW gave the FBI the emails two months ago. The FBI isn't investigating, but says they're interested in seeing if any crime was committed, but don't plan to investigate. Uh, apparently not that much interest. Then again, it's only a child sex offender.

It's good to know that George Bush doesn't care about child sex predators even two days after the story becomes a national scandal. How would Bush feel if some 52 year old guy asked Jenna and Barbara, at the age of 16, if he made them feel horny, and then asked to describe how they masturbate? How is this any different than Denny Hastert, Shimkus and the rest of the House Republicans refusing to investigate Foley when they knew about this last year? It's not.

4. NYT reporters CARL HULSE and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ plagiarize GOP talking points.

The Times apparently doesn't find it relevant that Foley asked a 16 year old boy about his underage friend's great body. Not to mention, they plagiarized the GOP talking points, literally. Check out how the NYT describes the Foley emails - in fact, the NYT describes the Foley emails using language straight out of the House Republican's statement today:

In those messages, Mr. Foley asked about the well-being of the boy, a Monroe, La., resident, after Hurricane Katrina and requested a photograph.

He wrote: “How are you weathering the hurricane. . .are you safe. . .send me a pic of you as well.”

Now take a look at how Rep. Shimkus portrayed the creepy emails in a statement he released last night, constructed with the help of Denny Hastert's office:

In that email exchange, Congressman Foley asked about the former Page's well-being after Hurricane Katrina and requested a photograph. When asked about the email exchange, Congressman Foley said he expressed concern about the Page's well-being and wanted a photo to see that the former Page was alright.

Ah yes, why should NYT reporters Hulse and Hernandez report the facts when they have GOP spin that they can simply plagiarize as their own words.

As for the Times stating that the Foley emails were simply asking about the well-being of the boy after Hurricane Katrina, unless Foley was worried about the well-being of an underage boy's "really great" body, this description is utter bullshit. How does the Times fail to mention the one email that is the creepiest? The email in which Foley mentions another 16 year old page and how the boy "acts much older than his age" (what? like a high school junior instead of a sophomore?) and how the underage boy is in "really great shape." Oh yeah, no problem with some 52 year old guy saying that about a sixteen year old boy to another sixteen year old boy. Read the rest of this post...

Josh Marshall asks Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert, who's on first?

From TalkingPointsMemo.com. This is long. Read it.

[GOP Congressman] Alexander's Chief of Staff calls [GOP Speaker Denny] Hastert's office about emails "he and Congressman Alexander were concerned about it." But he doesn't tell the guy in Hastert's office what the emails say. The two staffs meet again later. But somehow what the emails actually say? Still not discussed.

They send Alexander's Chief of Staff to the [GOP] Clerk's Office. The Clerk asks to see the emails. But "Congressman Alexander's office declined citing the fact that the family wished to maintain as much privacy as possible and simply wanted the contact to stop."

When asked by the Clerk whether the emails are "of a sexual nature", Alexander's Chief of Staff tells him they're not but calls them "over-friendly."

Now, here's the problem as far as I can see this. Supposedly, no one in a position of authority ever lays eyes on these emails, presumably because they're relatively innocuous. But at the same time they can't be seen by anyone else because "family wished to maintain as much privacy as possible." Those two points don't really square in my mind.

So the Clerk and [GOP] Rep. Shimkus meet with [GOP Congressman Mark] Foley having never seen the emails in question -- either because they're basically innocuous or because of concern for the family's privacy. Take your pick.

So they give Foley a clean bill of health having never reviewed the emails that raised the concerns.

And Hastert's staffers?

"Mindful of the sensitivity to the parent's wishes to protect their child's privacy and believing that they had promptly reported what they knew to the proper authorities [the three members of Hastert's office] did not discuss the matter with others in the Speaker's Office."

Basically, everyone's so mindful of the sensitivity of the matter they manage never to investigate what actually happened. Isn't that what they're saying?

And also, as luck would have it, the extreme sensitivity to the parent's feelings helps keep the entire matter hermetically sealed from Speaker Hastert.

So everyone's very mindful of the privacy of the family. But somehow [GOP Majority Leader] Rep. Boehner and [GOP] Rep. Reynolds found out about it from Rep. Alexander. And Reynolds mentioned it to Hastert. But Hastert doesn't remember. And Boehner told Hastert about it too. And Hastert said it was being taken care of. Only Hastert never heard about it...

Read the rest of this post...

Hastert: I might have known even though I said I didn't know

Earlier today, Roll Call reported that the Speaker's office was "scrambling" to address the statement from Congressman Reynolds saying he told the Speaker about Foley earlier this year.

All that scrambling resulted in a statement from Hastert's on who in their office knew what when. They're trying to address the inconsistencies among the House GOP leaders who can't seem to get their stories straight. So, now we learn that the Speaker knew about Foley before he said he didn't know -- or something like that:

Congressman Tom Reynolds in a statement issued today indicates that many months later, in the spring of 2006, he was approached by Congressman Alexander who mentioned the Foley issue from the previous fall. During a meeting with the Speaker he says he noted the issue which had been raised by Alexander and told the Speaker that an investigation was conducted by the Clerk of the House and Shimkus. While the Speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynold's recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution.

There was no resolution until yesterday. The House GOP leadership essentially ignored the child sexual predator among them. Let's not forget this tidbit in this morning's The New York Times:

The page who received the first e-mail messages told ABC News that people in the program had warned his class to watch out for Mr. Foley. The page worked for Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, and sent the messages to a colleague in the office with a note saying they had “freaked me out.”

So the kids were warned that Foley was trouble. And, the kid who got the e-mails was "freaked out." The teenage pages knew there was a problem. But, the adults who run Congress weren't worried.

Still no explanation of exactly when and why Alexander told the head of the the House Republican's campaign committee, Tom Reynolds -- beyond the obvious reason that the GOP is more worried about politics than protecting children. Read the rest of this post...

More GOP cover-up: Reynolds contradicts Hastert

From Roll Call we learn there are even more contradictions among Republican leaders about who knew what when. There is so much evidence of a GOP leadership cover-up here:

National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) issued a statement Saturday in which he said that he had informed Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) of allegations of improper contacts between then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and at least one former male page, contradicting earlier statements from Hastert.

GOP sources said Reynolds told Hastert earlier in 2006, shortly after the February GOP leadership elections. Hastert's response to Reynolds' warning remains unclear.

Hastert's response yesterday was that he didn't know about the Foley case:

Hastert's staff insisted Friday night that he was not told of the Foley allegations and are scrambling to respond to Reynolds' statement.

Scrambling. The GOP leaders are all scrambling. You only scramble when you haven't told the truth.

Remember one key fact: When Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) first learned about the Foley e-mails, he went to Rep. Tom Reynolds, the chair of the GOP House campaign committee. Not, the Ethics Committee. Not the Speaker. Not the Capitol Police. He went to the top GOP House political operative. Josh Marshall examined this aspect of the scandal:

Finally, one detail here isn't getting enough attention. Rep. Alexander (R-LA), the first member of Congress to be alerted to the problem, says he contacted the NRCC. That's the House Republicans' election committee, a political organization entirely separate from the House bureaucracy and the Congress. (The head of the NRCC this cycle is Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY).) That is, to put it mildly, not in the disciplinary and administrative chain of command of the House of Representatives. Considering that the issue involved a minor, it seems highly inappropriate to discuss the matter with anyone not charged with policing the House. More to the point, however, you tell the head of the NRCC because you see the matter as a political problem. Reynolds is the one in charge of making sure Republican House seats get held. If an incumbent might have drop out or be kicked out you want him to know so that he can line up someone to replace him. You at least want to keep him abreast of the situation if you think a problem might develop. I cannot see any innocent explanation for notifying the head of the NRCC while not information the full membership of the page board.

Read the rest of this post...

I'll be discussing Foley on CNN at 530pm ET today

UPDATE from Joe in DC: John just called to say that CNN will be taking email questions from viewers about the Foley case. They'll announce the email address during the segment. I'll post when we get it. But get those questions ready.

Tune in or be square. My sparring partner will be RedState's Mike Krempasky. He's actually a good guy, so should be interesting. Read the rest of this post...

Ex-Foley chief of staff now chief of staff to Rep. Tom Reynolds, second member to be informed last year of Foley's sex scandal

GOP. Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) was apparently the first member of Congress to know about Foley's trolling for underage kids online. Alexander was the former boss of one of the pages who Foley chatted up. Alexander says that he then contacted the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee (the body in charge of electing Republicans to the House), Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY).

First off, we all thought it strange that Alexander's first action wasn't to report the alleged child predator to the Ethics Committee, the FBI, or even the Capitol Police. Rather, Alexander reported it to a political body, as though this were a story to be dealt with politically.

Second, it's not at all clear what if anything Reynold's did to address this shocking revelation.

But now the other shoe drops. Reynold's chief of staff is Kirk Fordham, the former chief of staff and former campaign director to Mark Foley (I've known Fordham for years). Here is Reynold's announcement about hiring Fordham last October:

U.S. Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, R- Clarence, today announced he has hired Kirk Fordham as his Chief of Staff.... Fordham also served as Rep. Mark Foley's, R-FL, Chief of Staff and campaign manager...

And Fordham returned in the past few days to Foley's side to advise him on this scandal.

Kirk Fordham, who worked as Foley's chief of staff for 10 years, returned to Foley's side to advise him during the past couple of days.

Fordham, Foley's guy, was hired by Reynolds at or around the time that Alexander went to Reynolds with the Foley story (Alexander says he found out about the scandal "ten or eleven months ago"). Is that why Alexander went to Reynolds, because Foley's guy worked for him? In other words, Alexander wasn't interested in reporting this to the authorities, he was interested in helping Foley by approaching "friends of Foley"? Not to mention, how serious an investigation did Reynold's do when his own chief of staff (assuming Fordham was there at the time) immediately ran to advise Foley on how to handle the scandal? Hardly an impartial investigator.

And one more point. According to all the sources we can find online, Fordham is still Reynolds' chief of staff. Why is Reynolds' chief of staff now advising Foley on this mess? This simply adds to the inherent conflicts of interest that have dogged this "investigation" from the beginning.

The entire story gets more and more incestuous, and the cover-up grows. Read the rest of this post...

Did GOP Rep. Tom Reynolds Cover Up Congressman’s Sex Crimes?

From the Democratic National Committee:

Why Did Tom Reynolds Cover Up Congressman’s Sex Crimes?

Washington, DC – Yesterday, Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley resigned from Congress when sexually inappropriate emails and instant messages he sent to a teenage boy came to light. While the shocking exchanges produced an immediate uproar that cost Congressman Foley his job, at least one member of the House Republican leadership had known about the situation for months and did nothing about it: New York Republican Congressman and chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee Tom Reynolds.

According to the Associated Press, Congressman Reynolds’ spokesman confirmed that Reynolds had been informed by another Congressman that the boy had complained about Foley’s inappropriate communications “months ago.” According to the report, the allegations first came to light in late 2005. [AP, 9/30/06] It appears that Reynolds did not tell authorities about the emails or take any step to discipline Foley, apparently choosing instead to sweep the matter under the rug to protect the Republican party’s dwindling chances of retaining control of the House of Representatives this November.

“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 Communications Director Karen Finney.

“We need real answers to important questions about precisely who knew about these activities and when they knew it, whether other current or former pages were victimized by Congressman Foley, why the Republican House leadership was prepared to adjourn without at the very least referring this matter to the ethics committee, and what corrective action if any Congressman Reynolds and the rest of the Republican House leadership took. Failing to answer to these questions would send a terrible message to the parents who entrust their children to the care of the Page School and send them to Washington to serve Congress.”

Read the rest of this post...

9/11 Commission not told of key meeting between Tenet and Rice pre-9/11, Tenet warned Rice we were about to be hit, Rice ignored him

I noticed this buried in the Washington Post story last night about Woodward's book, and Editor & Publisher picked up on it too. Here is Editor & Publisher's excerpt of it. This is a big deal. It's the most important piece of evidence, other than the PDB, showing that the Bush White House ignored the signs that 9/11 was coming. How the hell did the 9/11 Commission miss this? This is long, read it:

Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser. "For months," Woodward writes, "Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy... that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden.... Tenet and Black hoped to convey the depth of their anxiety and get Rice to kick-start the government into immediate action.

"Tenet had been losing sleep over the recent intelligence. There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming....

"But Tenet had been having difficulty getting traction on an immediate bin Laden action plan, in part because Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had questioned all the intelligence, asking: Could it all be a grand deception? "

Woodward describes the meeting, and the two officials' plea that the U.S. "needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden."

The result? "Tenet and Black felt they were not getting though to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies."

"Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated. Though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk. Black felt the decision to just keep planning was a sustained policy failure. Rice and the Bush team had been in hibernation too long....

"Afterward, Tenet looked back on the meeting with Rice as a lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the attacks. Rice could have gotten through to Bush on the threat, Tenet thought, but she just didn't get it in time. He felt that he had done his job and been very direct about the threat, but that Rice had not moved quickly. He felt she was not organized and did not push people, as he tried to do at the CIA.

"Black later said, 'The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head.'"

At the close of this excerpt, a Post editor's note states:

"How much effort the Bush administration made in going after Osama bin Laden before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, became an issue last week after former president Bill Clinton accused President Bush's 'eocons' and other Republicans of ignoring bin Laden until the attacks. Rice responded in an interview that 'what we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years.'"

Then we learn the following:

"The July 10 meeting of Rice, Tenet and Black went unmentioned in various investigations into the Sept. 11 attacks, and Woodward wrote that Black 'felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn't want to know about.'

"Jamie S. Gorelick, a member of the Sept. 11 commission, said she checked with commission staff members who told her investigators were never told about a July 10 meeting. 'We didn't know about the meeting itself,' she said. 'I can assure you it would have been in our report if we had known to ask about it.'

"White House and State Department officials yesterday confirmed that the July 10 meeting took place, although they took issue with Woodward's portrayal of its results."

Nice. Well, as I recall, DoD and FAA also apparently lied to the 9/11 Commission and that's a crime. So who at the White House "forgot" to mention this key meeting to the commission, and was that a crime as well? Read the rest of this post...

House GOP Majority Leader John Boehner changes his story, now can't remember if he told Speaker Hastert or not about Foley

Yeah right. Because a member of your leadership trolling for underage boys online isn't the kind of thing you'd remember. More from Josh (he's got some great coverage on this.)

PS Gotta love the Washington Post. Get a load of this line in today's Foley story:

He was a respected House member cruising toward a seventh term

Cruising? LOL Read the rest of this post...

JUST RELEASED: Woodward's Sunday Washington Post A1 Story

Tomorrow's Washington Post article by Bob Woodward is out here. Initial thoughts - it is as blockbuster as it should be. That Woodward is the one doing it will, I hope, be an irrelevant point. The major media have got to be able to start saying things like this:

On May 26, the Pentagon released an unclassified report to Congress, required by law, that contradicted the Joint Chiefs' secret assessment. The public report sent to Congress said the "appeal and motivation for continued violent action will begin to wane in early 2007."

There was a vast difference between what the White House and the Pentagon knew about the situation in Iraq and what they were saying publicly. But the discrepancy was not surprising. In memos, reports and internal debates, high-level officials of the Bush administration have voiced their concern about the United States' ability to bring peace and stability to Iraq since early in the occupation.

The short of it? They lied. Period. What Woodward shows in detail is that they knew things were bad and said the opposite to the American public. They lied.

What's also clear is that they all knew. Rumsfeld knew in intricate detail. Condi knew about the true reality on the ground in Iraq - and it's stark:

On Feb. 10, 2005, two weeks after Rice became secretary of state, Zelikow presented her with a 15-page, single-spaced secret memo. "At this point Iraq remains a failed state shadowed by constant violence and undergoing revolutionary political change," Zelikow wrote.

The insurgency was "being contained militarily," but it was "quite active," leaving Iraqi civilians feeling "very insecure," Zelikow said.

U.S. officials seemed locked down in the fortified Green Zone. "Mobility of coalition officials is extremely limited, and productive government activity is constrained."

It's as clear as "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US". They know exactly what's going on and every time they stand up in public it's the opposite of reality that comes out of their mouths. Read it all here. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

In most of these scandals involving elected officials, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. In the Foley case, it's the crime AND the cover-up. And the GOP leadership covered up the child sexual predator in their midst.

So, let's get it started.... Read the rest of this post...

C&L; with the ABC News report on Foley

Did the GOP not learn anything from the massive Vatican cover up with pedophilia? Sweeping this under the rug and hoping it goes away is not a strategy. Helping a pedophile and sexual predator is not a positive value. Choosing to prop up a pedophile and predator for campaign purposes tells me this crowd, who seems to have known about the Foley abuses for a long time, tells me that the GOP will say and do anything to hold power.

It is especially disturbing to hear that everyone seemed to know that Foley was a child predator yet it continued to happen without helping the children involved. How morally bankrupt is the GOP leadership when they just sit there and let this happen? Read the rest of this post...

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children still supports Foley

This is sick.



I can think of two sixteen year old boys who won't be missing him that much. Jesus. Who do you have to sleep with to piss off these people? This is absolutely sickening. Read the rest of this post...

Boehner says Hastert knew about Foley, yet all day Hastert's people and other GOP members lied, said Hastert was never informed

Okay, so the Republicans all lied all day when they said GOP House Speaker Hastert was never informed about Foley's indiscretion. And House Majority Leader John Boehner knew too. So the House leadership DID know about Foley, and according to Hastert "they took care of it." Yeah, I'm sure you did.

Wash Post:

The resignation rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley's GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him "we're taking care of it."

It was not immediately clear what actions Hastert took. His spokesman had said earlier that the speaker did not know of the sexually charged e-mails between Foley and the boy.

And as Josh Marshall points out, Boehner told the Washington Post that he did inform Hastert when he found out about the scandal months ago, yet Boehner told Roll Call, vehemently, that he didn't tell Hastert. Oops. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Wow. Read the rest of this post...