Posted on 09/30/2006 7:55:53 PM PDT by nj26
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to a 16-year-old page, a top GOP House member said yesterday -- contradicting the speaker's assertions that he learned of concerns about Foley only last week.
Hastert did not dispute the claims of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and his office confirmed that some of Hastert's top aides knew last year that Foley had been ordered to cease contact with the boy and to treat all pages respectfully.
Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, became the second senior House Republican to say that Hastert has known of Foley's contacts for months, prompting Democratic attacks about the GOP leadership's inaction. Foley abruptly resigned his seat Friday.
House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post on Friday that he had learned in late spring of inappropriate e-mails Foley sent to the page, a boy from Louisiana, and that he promptly told Hastert, who appeared to know already of the concerns. Hours later, Boehner contacted The Post to say he could not be sure he had spoken with Hastert...
Only after Reynolds's definitive statement did Hastert concede yesterday that he may have been notified of some of the questionable activities of Foley, 52, who had co-chaired the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Any citizen with some common sense would ask a lot more questions if they caught a 50yo gay man sending emails to a 16yo boy asking for pictures of the boy.
It's a pattern. Foley, Ney, DeLay, Burns. The leadership knew of their poor character and refused to do anything about it. I pick immorality. Corruption is the symptom.
Until our political leaders acknowledge the truth and atone for their sins, this incident will be a stain on our party and our nation in God's eyes.
Looking the other way as children are abused... that's a sin in my book.
I think somebody is not happy with the analysis given by other Freepers, or the fact that Hastart and the Republican leadership in the House have now asked for a CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION.
In hindsight it looks bad.
I doubt that Hastert had any idea that Foley was having intimate conversations with that boy.
BTW, is the boy in the emails the same boy in the IM's?
No, I'm not happy to see our political leaders trying to self-destruct our party.
What did they know and when did they know it? Aw, jeez, looks like we need another investigation. Maybe Patrick Fitzgerald can find the answers! < / sarc>
"Hastert and the Republican leadership in the House have now asked for a CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION."
Too little, too late. They had information for a year and didn't appropriately act upon it.
The people who held the IMs since 2003 are friends of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson.
They cannot be considered separate and apart from this crime ridden scandal. Valerie and her friends are quite likely to get their 15 minutes of fame trying to explain why they sat on the evidence of this crime so long.
Sounds like Boehner and Hastert can't get their stories straight....this is looking baadddddd. Say goodnight to the GOP-controlled House.
This bit of information has appeared on each and every thread on this topic.
You ever hear of "beating a dead horse" ?
In detail, where?
"You ever hear of "beating a dead horse" ?"
If you caught a 50yo gay man asking your 16yo son for his pictures, would you take the gay man's explanation at face value?
Give me a break...
No way
BTW, the parents asked that the guy be told to leave their kid alone and don't make a big stink about it (to protect their kid).
Of course I feel that Foley had to go.
But we look at Barney Frank running a homosexual prostitution cathouse in his basement, and he didnt go.
It is frightening to think of people like this in high government office.
Hastert knew that Foley was emailing 16yo boys and asking for pictures.
He accepted some flimsy explanation from Foley. If you caught a 50yo gay man asking your 16yo son for pictures, would you take the "explanation" at face value?
Hastert needs to go. He's obviously a bumbling idiot or a morally corrupt politician.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1711435/posts
Please read this before you comment further.
You use a politically correct synonym for 'merry' to describe pederasty and you lose right of out of the gate. There is nothing wrong with 'merriment', ask anyone!
I read it and I'm not convinced.
How about this: they were waiting for the right time to release it as to affect the outcome of the Nov. elections. Plame/Wilson are hell bent on getting paybacks at Bush, and it comes down to impeachment if the Dems gain control of the house.
"The people who held the IMs since 2003 are friends of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson."
I don't understand this aspect of the story. Could you provide some detail please?
This inconsistency....
"House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post on Friday that he had learned in late spring of inappropriate e-mails Foley sent to the page, a boy from Louisiana, and that he promptly told Hastert, who appeared to know already of the concerns. Hours later, Boehner contacted The Post to say he could not be sure he had spoken with Hastert."
Did Hastart know that Foley was homosexual?
First Boehner told the Post that he promptly told Hastert about the emails, and then he calls back hours later to tell the Post he can't remember if he spoke to Hastert about it, lol...I would call that a big inconsistency, lol
"Did Hastert know that Foley was homosexual?"
It's been all over the press. I knew and I don't even live in DC. Foley had planned to run for Senate but dropped out of the race in 2004 due to the homosexuality issue.
Meanwhile Scott Ritter is not in jail for attempting to meet young girls at Burger King for sex.
Well you are an expert in the above with your jumping to wild conclusions and not looking at the facts.
When the explicit IM's were found out(probably Friday morning), Hastert immediately booted foley, unlike the reaction nancy pelosi would have had if confronted with the same situation.
I don't think the whole "The Post lied" excuse is going to work on this one. They better come up with a better defense than that.
I still see this disclosure as an October Surprise. It's October. Surprise. Candidate is out. Rats win.
Granted it's a minor point in this matter but I think we all know why Congress cannot act on import leglislation when we find out that there is, in fact, a "Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children".
Its just one seat and still undecided whether or not its lost.
Why? They lied about valerie plame.
Also DUmmie troll, when the Pubies find a bad apple that get rid of it, while they democrats keep all their rotten eggs around(barney frank, gerry studds, ted kennedy).
That is, they are all the same thing.
Democratic party activists.
They'll do anything they can to get control of Congress so they can conduct an impeachment against the President.
I don't expect to have to repeat myself again on this ~ CREW had the IMs. For 3 years. This is the Plame/Wilson scandal in a different format back to haunt us.
And that's what happens when a Republican President fails to take the most vigorous action possible against internal CIA spies like Mary McCarthy and the folks revealing national security secrets to the New York Times, and then fires Porter Goss, CIA director, because he admitted he might have attended some parties where Demon Rum was available.
It's long overdue for "W" to round up these people ~ enemies of America and the American people ~ and pop them into holding cells for the duration of the war ~ just like Woodrow Wilson.
They threw him out.
Not necessarily. The district is a conservative one, and also I'm surprised the democrats did it with 5 weeks left before the election.
A week is a lifetime in politics and 5 weeks is 5 lifetimes.
Doggone it man, we are talking high treason here ~ people get executed for this stuff.
It's time to round 'em up.
There was a democrat who knew as well, did the story list him?
We know all about people of questionable character in MA but our idiots keep electing them. Kennedy, Kerrey, Barney Franks, Gerry Studds to name a few.
Wish it were that easy!
The IMs that were sleazy were discovered by the House leadership on September 29 ~ YESTERDAY.
They kicked the guy out on the spot.
What more is there to know?
People keep saying Plame's friends were sitting on this information for 3 years or since 2003. Can someone direct me to evidence of this?
I should point out that even if there is evidence of sitting on information, it is apparent that high-level GOP heads knew what had happened and waited until word got out to act. We wouldn't have 10 different stories of "He knew it, I told him." "Oh wait, I'm wrong. I didn't tell him." "I knew in spring." "I knew in fall." That's disgusting.
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