Another update on Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY).
In the debate we referenced below, when challenged on Foleygate, Kelly said: “There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that anything at all went on with the pages at that time. And as a matter of fact the evidence shows that mr. foley apparently began this in 2001 when I was no longer on the board.”
Kelly says she was chairwoman on the Page Board in 1999 and 2000, though Salley Collins, spokeswoman for the House Administration committee told a local paper Kelly’s service was from 1998 to 2000. (Not necessarily a significant difference, the cycle may have actually started when the new Congress was sworn in in 1999.)
But ABC News has reported that pages from the 1998, 200 and 2002 page classes have come forward to say they were hit on by Rep. Foley (R-FL). That is in addition to Tyson Vivyan, an ex-page who says he was approached in 1997 and other pages who report being warned about Foley as far back as 1995.
Also, retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) appears to have still been on the Page Board in 2000, when he was approached by a page who said he’d been sexually chatted up by Foley. Kolbe says he passed on word to the House Clerk, who is the fourth member of the Page Board. Kolbe’s spokesperson appears to have left open the possibility that this occurred in early 2001. But it seems probable that this occurred during the time that Kelly was chair.
Point being, there appear to be numerous points on which Kelly’s statement in the debate don’t square with the facts as they are currently known.
