Kirk Fordham says he's ready to testify under oath.
Posted on 10/07/2006 4:03:38 AM PDT by TexKat
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Dennis Hastert's chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member said Friday.
The staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, met with Foley at the Capitol to discuss complaints about the Florida Republican's behavior.
The alleged meeting occurred long before Hastert says aides in his office dispatched Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., and the clerk of the House in November 2005 to confront Foley about troubling e-mails he had sent to a Louisiana boy.
The staff member's account supports Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who said this week that he had appealed to Palmer in 2003 or earlier to intervene, after Fordham's efforts to stop Foley's behavior had failed. Fordham said Foley and Palmer, one of the most powerful figures in the House, met within days to discuss the allegations.
Palmer said this week that the meeting Fordham described "did not happen." Timothy Heaphy, Fordham's attorney, said Friday that Fordham is prepared to testify under oath that he had arranged the meeting and that both Foley and Palmer told him the meeting had taken place. Fordham spent more than three hours with the FBI on Thursday, and Heaphy said he contacted the House ethics committee Friday to offer his client's cooperation.
"We are not preparing to cooperate. We are affirmatively seeking to," Heaphy said.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Kirk Fordham says he's ready to testify under oath.
Staffer backs up alleged 2003 Foley face-off ping
who spoke on condition of anonymity
Mr. Hastert would have done well to get more involved personally--maybe would have had more impact if he would have been a leader and told the out of control Foley to knock it off... It seems to me Hastert needs to decide if he's going to be the leader. Wrap your arms around the job, Dennis, and be direct! I'd like to see him call a spade a spade and tell the dems and the media how they lie--and to stop lying. Get them on the defensive, Dennis. Don't be the quiet gentleman--your (our) opponents aren't. Tell them where to get off and don't back up--please!! And never, never, hire anyone who wears their sexuality on their sleeve and if one is "closeted," but reackless, fire them right away. Never protect a gay--it always bites you in the butt.
If Fordham is ready to testify under oath, and if he repeats his contradictory statements of this past week, he will be charged with perjury.
And you just have to shake your head at the "anonymous staffer" who is so insistent about what took place, and when, and what was said, but they're not confident enough about the allegations they're making to just step forward and say "hey, my name is _______, this is what happened, I will testify to this under oath."
The one and only honorable thing that Foley has done was to resign his seat immediately. Everything else about him is and will be condemned and rightly so (hello "Penner"? here's your clue!).
Now let's see the accusers and those "in the know" step forward, show their faces, and disclose EVERYTHING.
Other than the "overly friendly" emails, has there been anyone come forward between 2003 and now? It seems to me *if* this meeting took place as Fordham says, then the behavior stopped. It was addressed and handled.
Obviously, someone isn't telling the truth. But this much we know for sure: Foley has left the House and it's no thanks to Hastert or any other member of the House Republican leadership. He's gone because the media -- following ABC News' lead -- have grabbed onto this story and won't let go. If this matter had been left to Hastert and other Republican leaders, as it was for too long, Foley would still be serving in Congress and getting ready to welcome a new class of congressional pages. Now that's creepy.
Hastert must go
House Republican leaders still have questions to answer, and let's hope their next round of responses goes better than their first. But, it's too late for Hastert, who's shown himself to be at least incompetent and negligent and perhaps, at most, devious enough to lead a cover-up simply to prevent what happened in the last week from happening at all. Hastert must resign.
The old Republican Party -- the one advertised in the brochure -- would have demanded it, and would have accepted nothing less. The writer is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union Tribune. Contact him at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061007/COLUMNISTS28/610070307/1005/OPINION
You are intelligent enough to sort out this cesspool????
Sorry won't fly...
Amen Bro... something this Auburn fan can agree 100% with his arch-enemy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Trandahl
Jeff Trandahl
"He is openly gay and has played an evolving role in managing the questionable behavior of (formerly) closeted Representative Mark Foley."
So Congress put an OPEN GAY fellow on the page program...
==================
Jeff Trandahl was appointed the thirty-second Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives in December 1998. He was elected Clerk on January 6, 1999, for the 106th Congress, re-elected Clerk on January 3, 2001, for the 107th Congress and re-elected Clerk on January 7, 2003, for the 108th Congress.
Trandahl began his congressional career in 1983 as an aide to Senator James Abdnor (R-SD). From 1987-1990 and from 1990-1995, he was affiliated with the offices of Congresswoman Virginia Smith (R-NE) and Congressman Pat Roberts (R-KS) and with the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on House Administration, respectively. In 1995, he joined the Office of the Clerk and served in various capacities. He was also the Acting Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives from 1996-1997.
In November 18, 2005, Trandahl resigned as Clerk to accept a position as the executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. He was succeeded by Karen L. Haas.
=========================================
WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD PUT AN OPENLY GAY PERSON IN CHARGE OF THE PAGE PROGRAM>>>>
Someone that was accused of turning his back when inapproiate behavior was observed with Foley !!!
Your #5, good advice for Hastert. I know you meant, ( "get on the offensive, Dennis"!)
Another critical moment for Hastert came when he first spoke publically about Foley's behavior. There was no outrage, no emotion, no empathetic disgust about possibly deplorable behavior toward the young pages. As a parent, teacher, coach, you'd have thought Hastert's first public comments would have contained and displayed, strong emotional outrage.
Remember Dukakis answering a presidential debate question about the possible brutal rape and murder of his wife with technical, cold, unemotional campaign rhetoric? Hastert's calculated response reminded me of Dukakis...not good.
Aide Says He Reported Foley 2 Years Ago
Oct 04 4:03 PM US/Eastern
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
A senior congressional aide said Wednesday that he alerted House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office two years ago about worrisome conduct by former Rep. Mark Foley with teenage pages.
Kirk Fordham told The Associated Press that when he was told about Foley's inappropriate behavior toward pages, he had "more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene."
The conversations took place long before the e-mail scandal broke, Fordham said, and at least a year earlier than members of the House GOP leadership have acknowledged.
Hastert's Office Responds To Fordham
Ron Bonjean, communications director for Speaker Dennis Hastert, e-mailed this statement in response to Kirk Fordham's allegations that he informed a senior congressional aide -- Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer -- about Foley's problems with pages.
“This matter has been referred to the Standards Committee and we fully expect that the bipartisan panel will do what it needs to do to investigate this matter and protect the integrity of the House."
And a leadership aide sympathetic to Hastert said that Fordham "is now contradicting his comments" about learning of Foley's behavior recently. Fordham told the AP this morning: "This was someone I had worked for 10 years. I had no inkling that this kind of blatantly reckless — just obscene — behavior was going on behind our backs."
Oh, boy. "Don't ask, don't tell" only applied to the military, where it is still illegal to engage in homosexuality. Under no law has a violation of "don't ask, don't tell" policy ever been considered a "hate crime" - that's generally an aggravating factor in violent crimes.
Palmer Responds To Fordham Accusation
Scott Palmer, Hastert's chief of staff, released a brief statement:
“What Kirk Fordham said did not happen.”
"Don't ask, don't tell" only applied to the military,"
and, perhaps senior Republican staffers.
ABC's Ross: "Kirk Fordham, former chief of staff for Foley, told ABC News today that sometime in late 2003, he told the Speaker's chief of staff that Foley was getting too close to young male pages. Fordham says the Speaker's aide, Scott Palmer, then met with Foley. Fordham also said the Speaker knew about the meeting."
More: "A spokesman for the Speaker's office today denied that anyone from Foley's office made contact about Foley's contacts with pages. Fordham says he did not want to talk on camera because he plans to contact the FBI tomorrow to tell what he knows" ("World News," 10/4).
Ross: "Nobody, Hastert, nobody, really knew about those explicit e-mails. And there can't be any doubt that anybody who saw those would act quickly. And they all did" ("O'Reilly Factor," FNC, 10/4).
FNC's Cameron: Fordham "says that in early 2004 he had more than one conversation with the House speaker's office, Dennis Hastert's office, suggesting that Mark Foley had some troubling behavior and seeking intervention. That is more than a year before any House Republican leader has as yet acknowledged even a hint that Foley had become a problem" ("Special Report," 10/4).
CNN's Bash: "Fordham dropped this political bomb hours after he resigned as chief of staff to New York Congressman Tom Reynolds. The new charge put the speaker back on the defensive, as senior GOP lawmakers continued to distance themselves from him" ("AC 360," 10/4).
NBC's Viqueira: "It turns out that last night, the GOP conference had a conference call, sort of crisis management, where all 232 House Republicans are invited to call in and get a bearing on where everything is in the status of this scandal. .. On that call, rumors -- and I repeat, they are rumors -- were brought up by at least one congressman, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who alleged that there was an incident within the last several years when former congressman Foley came to the House page dorm, which is just south of the Capitol, just a few blocks south, in an intoxicated state, was stopped by the Capitol police from entering the page residence hall" ("Scarborough Country," MSNBC, 10/4).
MSNBC's Shuster: "Based on the e-mails and computer messages, law enforcement officials say it would be difficult to prosecute Foley because mere sex talk with a minor is not automatically illegal. But when it comes to politics, the damage from the Foley scandal could be devastating to the GOP and the question is, can House Speaker Denny Hastert and other top Republicans survive?" ("Hardball," 10/4).
Washington Post's Birnbaum: "All fingers are now pointing to the speaker, I'm afraid that the next person to be sacrificed may be the speaker" ("Special Report," FNC, 10/4).
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): "The facts are that no one knew about these explicit instant messages until the story was broken last week. Not the House leadership, no member of Congress, to my knowledge, had any knowledge of what
was going on here, nor did they know the extent of Foley's actions" ("Tucker," MSNBC, 10/4).
IL 14 candidate John Laesch (D): "I entered this race with the intention to win. I was hoping at that time that this race would be a referendum on the war in Iraq. I had certainly had no anticipation that this would be, you know, a sex scandal in Washington, D.C. that takes down the most powerful Congressman in America."
Asked if Hastert is a man "of character": "I think that this issue has defined the clearest difference between myself and Mr. Hastert, that being I stand for honesty and integrity ... and I'll let the voters decide where he stands" ("Hardball," MSNBC, 10/4).
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:R89Af79goXUJ:hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/+foley+got+pages+e-mail+addresses+from+msnbc&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=8
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