| Foley panel: GOP didn't protect pages
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The House ethics committee reported Friday that Republican lawmakers and aides failed to protect young male pages from former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record)'s improper advances, concluding an investigation into a scandal that convulsed Congress and contributed to the GOP defeat in last month's elections.
The panel said it found no evidence that any current lawmakers or aides violated any rules. But it said it discovered a pattern of conduct among many "to remain willfully ignorant of the potential consequences" of Foley's conduct.
Foley, R-Fla., hurriedly resigned his seat Sept. 29 after the existence of sexually explicit computer messages sent to teenage pages came to light.
He quickly entered an alcoholic treatment program.
But the scandal damaged Republicans politically, and raised questions about whether Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., or his aides had done enough to investigate reports of improper advances by Foley.
Florida authorities have opened a criminal investigation into whether Foley broke any laws related to his communications with the teens. Federal authorities are also investigating.
The report found that Hastert was likely told about Foley's e-mails by two Republican leaders last spring.
Hastert has said he doesn't recall the conversations. But both Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York have said they informed the speaker last spring.
"The speaker's reported statement in response to Majority Leader Boehner that the matter 'has been taken care of' is some evidence that the speaker was aware of some concern regarding Rep. Foley's conduct" even prior to the spring conversation, the report said.
The report was the result of numerous interviews conducted over nine weeks. Most of the witnesses answered question without being subpoenaed.
Rep. Doc Hastings (news, bio, voting record), R-Wash., and Howard Berman, D-Calif., the committee's leaders, said the report reflected the bipartisan conclusions of a four-member investigative panel.
"This is not the jury-rigged result of a series of compromises but rather the right report on this subject," Berman said at a news conference in the Capitol.
Some of Foley's computer messages — not the most sexually explicit ones — came to light after the recipient's parents contacted Rep. Rodney Alexander (news, bio, voting record), the Louisiana Republican who was the young man's sponsor in the page program.
Apart from Alexander and his aides, the ethics committee said, "No one in the House who was involved in addressing Rep. Foley's conduct ... actually saw the e-mails. Several people were told about the e-mails and were asked to take action regarding them, including confronting Rep. Foley and telling him to stop," the report said.
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