The Daily Muck

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Ex-Page Aired Concerns About Foley to Congressman in 2000
“A former Congressional page approached Representative Jim Kolbe, Republican of Arizona, as long as six years ago to report feeling uncomfortable by messages sent from Representative Mark Foley [as was reported yesterday in The Washington Post], but a spokeswoman for Mr. Kolbe said Monday that it was unclear if Mr. Kolbe had forwarded the complaint to House leaders.

“Mr. Kolbe, a former member of the board that oversees the House page program, remembers talking to a page with concerns about Mr. Foley’s conduct, said Korenna Cline, Mr. Kolbe’s press secretary. But Mr. Kolbe could not remember whether he confronted Mr. Foley directly, Ms. Cline said, or delegated the matter to his staff.

“Reached by telephone on Monday while he was traveling in Europe, Mr. Kolbe declined to answer questions about the page’s complaint or Mr. Foley’s case. In a brief conversation, he said: ‘We’ll have a statement on that. We’ll have a statement on that.'” (NY Times)

FBI Agent Pulled Files on Specter
“FBI agents in April reviewed financial disclosure forms for Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) on the same day USA Today published an article about lobbyists who are related to aides of the veteran appropriator using access to the office to secure earmarks….

“…unlike other recent instances of federal investigators reviewing Members’ financial forms, which is historically very rare, neither Specter, his staff nor those close to them have been implicated in any ethics investigations or have any subpoenas been filed involving Specter or his staff….

“While it is still unclear why the FBI accessed Specter’s file — and whether he is a formal “target” of an investigation or is involved tangentially in an investigation — the document review came the same day as USA Today’s story about two relatives of top Specter aides, Eric Wallace and Shannon Meadors Oscar.

“Wallace, a lobbyist for Triad Strategies and the son of Specter’s State Director Andy Wallace, had secured a $200,000 earmark for a Philadelphia nonprofit group. Oscar, a lobbyist with Capital Advocates, is married to Michael Oscar, who ran Specter’s Philadelphia office before moving to the office of Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).” (Roll Call)

FBI to Question Former Page on Suggestive Foley E-mails
“The FBI is expected to interview a former congressional page Tuesday who may have received suggestive electronic messages from former Florida Rep. Mark Foley, his attorney said.

“”They (FBI) will question Jordan Edmund concerning his knowledge, if any, about former congressman Mark Foley,” Edmund’s attorney Stephen Jones told The Oklahoman. The meeting was to occur in Oklahoma City where Edmund has been working on a gubernatorial campaign, Jones said.” (AP)

Former Pages Surveyed in Foley Probe
“Lawmakers, following a request from the House ethics committee, are surveying aides and former House pages to find out if any of them had knowledge of ex-Rep. Mark Foley’s inappropriate conduct toward male pages….

“The ethics committee leaders, in a letter to all House members, asked them to contact current and former pages they sponsored to learn whether any of them had “inappropriate communications or interactions” with Foley or any other House member.” (AP)

Legal Battle Over Access to Records Taking Shape in Foley Investigation
“State and federal investigators are trying to determine whether Foley’s Internet exchanges with former House pages constituted a crime. Since opening a preliminary investigation a week ago, they have started interviewing former pages and congressional aides.

“Authorities are now deciding whether to subpoena records from the office and home computers that [former Rep. Mark] Foley used, according to people familiar with the case, who requested anonymity. Such evidence would be central in building a case against the Fort Pierce Republican.” (Palm Beach Post)

Foley Probe to Focus on Who Knew, When
“Witnesses will begin testimony behind closed doors this week in the sex scandal that has sent shudders through the Republican-controlled Congress and potentially though the upcoming elections.

“The investigation, which is being conducted by the House Ethics Committee in an otherwise quiet Capitol, will look into who knew what, and when, about the contacts between then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and male pages.” (LAT, Roll Call)

Florida: GOP Ponders Suit Over Ballot in Foley’s District
“The Florida Republican Party is exploring legal options to force county elections officials in the 16th Congressional district to display notices informing voters that state Rep. Joe Negron (R) will receive any votes cast for scandal-ridden ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R), whose name remains on the Nov. 7 ballot despite resigning his post a week and a half ago amid the furor over his sexually explicit messages to underage House pages.” (Roll Call, sub. req.)

Poll Shows Foley Case Is Hurting Congress’ Image
“Americans say that Republican Congressional leaders put their political interests ahead of protecting the safety of teenage pages, and that House leaders knew of Mark Foley’s sexually charged messages to pages well before he was forced to quit Congress, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll….

“With four weeks left before Election Day, the poll indicates that the scandal involving Mr. Foley, a former Republican congressman from Florida, is alienating Americans from Congress, and weakening a Republican Party that was already struggling to keep control of the House and Senate. By overwhelming numbers, including majorities of Republicans, Americans said that most members of Congress did not follow the same rules of behavior as average Americans, and that most members of Congress considered themselves above the law.” (NY Times)

The Real Conspiracy Behind the Foley Scandal
“Can there be any doubting the conspiracy at the heart of the Mark Foley scandal? For years, most of official Washington has known about a certain congressman capable of doing great harm. Republicans looked the other way because they worried about their fragile majority, while the media played the role of willing collaborator. Most knew the truth would come out eventually, but few had the guts to face it.

“I refer here, of course, to the fact that Dennis Hastert is a bumbling half-wit–something that became apparent to the world last week but had been common knowledge in Washington for almost a decade. It was roughly eight years ago, after all, that Tom DeLay installed Hastert as his front-man, knowing full well that Hastert was no more capable of being speaker than the average sheepdog, to which he bears a remarkable resemblance. (Just after Hastert accepted the speaker’s gig, a reporter asked him how he felt. Hastert’s one-word response: “Scared.”) But, rather than call DeLay on this lapse in judgment, House Republicans joined forces with the press to perpetrate an elaborate cover-up.” (TNR)

Suing Over the CIA’s Red Pen
“But the Capital Grille meal [between Gary Berntsen and CIA executive director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo] quickly degenerated when Berntsen told Foggo that not only was he planning to resign but he intended to write a book about his experiences.

“Foggo, according to Berntsen, stated flatly that Goss wanted no more books published by current or former CIA officials. Actually, according to a statement Berntsen filed last week in his ongoing lawsuit against the agency, Foggo’s language was a little more colorful: ‘Mr. Foggo stated “we will have no more books. I will redact the [expletive] out of your book so no one will want to read it.”‘…

“Berntsen’s lawsuit, filed earlier this year in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asserts that the CIA violated his First Amendment rights in redacting as much as it did.” (WaPo)

New D.C. Sex Scandal Looming?
“With the capital already mired in its latest sex scandal, federal agents last week raided the home of a woman they allege has, for the past 13 years, operated a Washington, D.C. escort service that dispatched college-educated prostitutes to the homes and hotel rooms of well-heeled clients. A two-year probe by Internal Revenue Service and Unites States Postal Inspection Service agents has targeted the Pamela Martin & Associates escort service and its owner, Deborah Jeane Palfrey…

“…Palfrey did speculate that she may have come to the attention of federal agents because her operation had somehow intersected with a more high profile case, like that of convicted ex-congressman Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham. Investigators are reportedly examining charges that a defense contractor provided hookers to Cunningham as part of an influence-peddling scheme. Palfrey did not claim a nexis between her escort service and Cunningham, but invoked the disgraced pol’s name while saying that she would wager that the basis for the federal probe of her business ‘had solely to do with some Duke Cunningham-type bigwig client that got caught up in something and started to say, “Do you know this?’ and “Do you know that?” And that he might have been able to lead them to somebody.'” (The Smoking Gun, AP)

Pirro Demands End to Eavesdropping Probe
“Republican state attorney general candidate Jeanine Pirro on Monday demanded an end to a federal investigation into whether she illegally eavesdropped on her husband who was suspected of having an affair.

“Pirro said the U.S. attorney’s office notified her lawyers last week that it had found no evidence of wiretapping. She was caught on tape last year asking former New York police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to plant a bug on her family’s boat.” (AP)

Latest Muckraker
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: