This is BS no matter how you look at it and as a parent and one who had a child selected to go to DC at one point, this is past appalling I'm not going to lie in my opinion his ass has a vacancy sign on it and in the words of Red Foreman my foot is looking for a new home.


October 1, 2006
G.O.P. Aides Knew in Late ’05 of E-Mail
By CARL HULSE and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.
The exchanges began with what Republicans now describe as an “overfriendly” e-mail message from Mr. Foley to the unidentified teenager.
But news reports about the exchanges led to the disclosure of e-mail correspondence with other former pages in which the discussions became more and more sexually explicit. Shortly after he was confronted by ABC News on Friday about the subject, Mr. Foley, who represented a south Florida district, resigned from the House.
The revelations set off a political upheaval, with Democrats and some Republicans calling for a full investigation of Mr. Foley’s conduct and whether House leaders did enough to look into it. Members of the Republican leadership sought Saturday to detail how they had handled the case in an effort to defuse the situation, even as it was emerging as an issue in Congressional races.
Among those who became aware earlier this year of the fall 2005 communications between Mr. Foley and the 16-year-old page, who worked for Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, were Representative John A. Boehner, the majority leader, and Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Mr. Reynolds said in a statement Saturday that he had also personally raised the issue with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.
“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,” Mr. Reynolds said.
In a chronology of the episode released later on Saturday, the speaker’s office said Mr. Hastert did not recall any such discussion and had no previous knowledge of the matter. “While the speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds’ recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution,” the statement said.
The statement, issued after senior aides, the House clerk and legal advisers huddled for much of Saturday in the Capitol, said senior staff members in the speaker’s office first learned of the e-mail messages from Mr. Alexander’s office in the fall of 2005 and took steps to investigate.
Aides to the speaker and other Congressional Republican leaders said the messages, which an Alexander aide described to them as “overfriendly,” were much less explicit than the others that came to light after ABC News first disclosed the e-mail correspondence with Mr. Alexander’s page. The aides said Mr. Alexander’s office, at the request of the page’s family, did not show them copies of the messages. In those messages, sent after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Foley asked about the well-being of the boy, a Monroe, La., resident. He wrote: “How are you weathering the hurricane. . .are you safe. . .send me a pic of you as well.” The page sent the note to a former colleague, describing it as “sick.”
In another message, Mr. Foley wrote, “What do you want for your birthday coming up. . .what stuff do you like to do.”
The e-mail exchanges that came to light after the first news reports were far more graphic. When he was confronted about them on Friday, Mr. Foley resigned. Republican leaders said they had not known about the other e-mail correspondence.
“No one in the speaker’s office was made aware of the sexually explicit text messages which press reports suggest had been directed to another individual until they were revealed in the press and on the Internet this week,” the statement from Mr. Hastert’s office said.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers said Saturday that Congress and the public deserved a full report on Mr. Foley’s dealings with the pages, who are high school students who serve as runners and perform other duties. The lawmakers said there should also be an inquiry into the leadership’s knowledge of his activities and its response.
“Anyone who was involved in the chain of information should come forward and tell when they were told, what they were told and what they did with the information when they got it,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. Mr. King called it a “dark day” for Congress and said, “We need a full investigation.”
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.
On Saturday night, the House Republican leadership issued a statement that characterized the communications between Mr. Foley and the former House pages as “unacceptable and abhorrent.”
“It is an obscene breach of trust,” the statement said. “His immediate resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system.”
The statement, from Mr. Hastert, Mr. Boehner and the majority whip, Roy Blunt, asked the board that oversees pages “to undertake a full review of the incident and propose additional safeguard measures.”
The leaders also said they had asked for specific rules governing the communications and contacts between pages and lawmakers and called for creation of a toll-free number for pages and their parents to report concerns.
Besides the leaders, other lawmakers and Congressional officers who served on the board that oversaw the page program were aware of the e-mail messages, though the Democratic lawmaker who serves on the board, Representative Dale E. Kildee of Michigan, said Saturday that he had never been informed.
According to lawmakers and the speaker’s office, the page who received the e-mail forwarded the one in which Mr. Foley, 52, asked for his picture, to a colleague in Mr. Alexander’s office, repeatedly calling it “sick” and saying it “freaked me out.”
Mr. Alexander called the boy’s parents, who, Republican leaders said Saturday, told him they did not want to pursue the matter but wanted Mr. Foley to stop.
Mr. Alexander’s office also contacted staff members in Mr. Hastert’s office for guidance on what to do and, according to the speaker’s account, his aides put Mr. Alexander’s staff in contact with the clerk of the House, who oversees the page program. The clerk, who at the time was Jeff Trandahl, referred the matter to Representative John Shimkus, the Illinois Republican who is the chairman of the House Page Board, in late 2005, a spokesman for Mr. Shimkus said.
Mr. Trandahl and Mr. Shimkus confronted Mr. Foley, who insisted he was simply acting as a mentor to the former page, officials said. He assured them nothing inappropriate had occurred.
“They asked Foley about the e-mail,” the speaker’s statement said. “Congressman Shimkus and the clerk made it clear that to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and at the request of the parents, Congressman Foley was to immediately cease any communication with the young man.”
The leadership had other possible avenues for investigating the e-mail messages beyond questioning Mr. Foley, including an inquiry by the ethics committee or even the Capitol police. But aides said that while the contents of the messages are disturbing in hindsight, they did not set off alarms initially.
On Saturday, Mr. Shimkus’ spokesman, Steve Tomaszewski, said, “Obviously Foley lied about the other e-mails.”
Mr. Tomaszewski said Mr. Shimkus would not comment on any other conversations he had with House leaders about the matter because it was referred to the ethics committee by a vote of the House on Friday. A spokesman for Mr. Alexander did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages.
Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, said Saturday that Mr. Boehner had had a “brief, nonspecific” conversation about the subject with Mr. Alexander in the spring but that he could not recall with certainty whether he had discussed it with other leaders.
Democrats moved quickly to criticize Mr. Reynolds, who while overseeing House campaigns nationally is facing the potential of a serious challenge from Jack Davis, a wealthy businessman who has vowed to spend at least $2 million of his own money in the contest. “Tom Reynolds had a moral obligation to protect our children,” said Curtis Ellis, a spokesman for Mr. Davis.
Carl Forti, a spokesman for Mr. Reynolds, said the congressman became aware of contact between Mr. Foley and the young page this past spring, when Mr. Alexander brought it to his attention. Mr. Forti said that Mr. Alexander had told Mr. Reynolds of an e-mail exchange between Mr. Foley and the page, but that he did not show Mr. Reynolds the e-mail messages and their contents.
Strategists for both parties said it was too early to tell what impact the episode might have on Congressional elections now five weeks away but said at a minimum it could lower the already dismal public view of incumbents and discourage conservative voters.
It directly affected the race for the seat of Mr. Foley — the third Republican to resign this year under a cloud. Tim Mahoney, the Democrat who had been running an uphill and barely watched race against Mr. Foley, used the new attention to his campaign on Saturday to accuse the Republican leadership of covering up for him.
“It’s now clear from all the reports coming in from across the country that the Republican leadership team has been well aware of this problem with the pages for well over a year,” Mr. Mahoney said at a campaign stop at Palm Beach International Airport. “It looks to me that it was more important to hold onto a seat and to hold onto power than to take care of our children.”
At the Justice Department, an official said that no investigation was under way but that the agency had “real interest” in examining the circumstances to see if any crimes were committed.
Several of Mr. Foley’s former colleagues demanded a criminal inquiry.
Representative Robert E. Cramer, an Alabama Democrat who was co-chairman with Mr. Foley of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, condemned Mr. Foley’s actions as “shocking and disturbing.”
“Anyone, including Foley, involved in this type of behavior should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Mr. Cramer said.


They say he used the screen name Maf54 on these messages provided to ABC News.

Maf54: You in your boxers, too?Teen:
Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.
Another message:
Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.
And this one:
Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.Maf54: Cool.

The language gets much more graphic, too graphic to be broadcast, and at one point the congressman appears to be describing Internet sex.
Federal authorities say such messages could result in Foley's prosecution, under some of the same laws he helped to enact.
"Adds up to soliciting underage children for sex," said Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent and now an ABC News consultant. "And what it amounts to is serious both state and federal violations that could potentially get you a number of years."
Foley's resignation letter was submitted late this afternoon, and he left Capitol Hill without speaking to reporters.
In a statement, he said he was "deeply sorry" and apologized for letting down his family and the people of Florida.
But he made no mention of the Internet messages or the pages.
One former page tells ABC News that his class was warned about Foley by people involved in the program.
Other pages told ABC News they were hesitant to report Foley because of his power in Congress.
This all came to a head in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, we asked the congressman about some much tamer e-mails from one page, and he said he was just being overly friendly. After we posted that story online, we began to hear from a number of other pages who sent these much more explicit, instant messages. When the congressman realized we had them, he resigned.

Click here to read an exclusive 2003 Internet exchange between Congressman Foley and a former congressional page, according to the young man. Warning: sexually explicit language, reader discretion advised.

Click here to read more Internet exchanges between Foley and former congressional pages


October 1, 2006
Democrats Assail G.O.P. for Silence on Foley
By BRIAN KNOWLTON International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1. — Democrats expressed outrage today that Republican leaders had waited nearly a year to tell them about e-mails between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, allowing the Florida Republican during that time to remain head of the Congressional caucus on children’s issues.
“This should be investigated objectively. I think the Democratic leadership should have been told 10 months ago,” Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said in a letter to the House Ethics Committee that it was “abhorrent” that House Republican leaders had known of Mr. Foley’s contacts with the page for a number of months “and that apparently no action was taken to protect these underage children,” Reuters reported. Ms. Pelosi said it was vital that the committee immediately question House Republican leaders under oath.
Mr. Foley, 52, resigned from the House shortly after being confronted Friday by ABC News about the exchanges. Other, more sexually explicit correspondence between Mr. Foley and other former pages emerged over the weekend.
This touched off a political upheaval, particularly after disclosures that top House Republicans knew for months about the original message traffic with the 16-year-old former page but kept it secret, while Mr. Foley remained head of the missing and exploited children’s caucus in Congress.
The House voted Friday to refer the matter for investigation by the House Ethics Committee. Some Republicans joined Democrats in calling for a fuller investigation of Mr. Foley’s dealings with pages — high school students who run errands and perform other duties — and of the leadership’s response.
Strategists for both parties said the scandal at a minimum could lower the already-dismal public view of incumbents and discourage conservative voters. It directly affected the race for Mr. Foley’s seat in south Florida. His name will remain on the ballot against Tim Mahoney, a Democrat, who had been running an uphill race.
Republicans, jolted by the matter, worked furiously to allay the damage from a moral issue that some termed a “gut punch.”
Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, called the allegations “shocking” and said today on the ABC News program “This Week” that President Bush had only recently been informed about the e-mails. Bartlett, however, said he saw no need for an investigation outside Congress, saying the Ethics Committee was “the best place for this investigation to go forward.”
One prominent Democrat, Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania, also favored an internal investigation — but only if done “very quickly,” before the elections. “It’s outrageous,” he told ABC News today. “It really makes me nervous that they look like they tried to cover it up.”
Among Republican leaders who learned earlier this year of the fall 2005 communications between Mr. Foley and the page, who worked for Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, were Representative John A. Boehner, the majority leader, and Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Mr. Reynolds said Saturday that he had personally raised the issue with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.
“ The speaker’s office said Saturday that Mr. Hastert did not recall any such discussion and had no previous knowledge of the matter, but had “no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds’ recollection.”
Aides to the speaker and other Congressional Republican leaders said the initial e-mail messages were much less explicit than the others that came to light after ABC News first disclosed the correspondence with Mr. Alexander’s page.
House Republican leaders issued a statement on Saturday characterizing the communications between Mr. Foley and the former House pages as “unacceptable and abhorrent,” and “an obscene breach of trust.”