Jonathan Weisman has a good piece in the Post tomorrow about the progress of the Hous Ethics Committee investigation into Foleygate. The first sentence outlines the basic story: “With House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert denying personal knowledge of former representative Mark Foley’s activities, investigators for the House ethics committee are bearing down on three senior members of Hastert’s staff to determine when they learned of Foley’s actions and whether they passed on their knowledge to the speaker.”
With that in mind, it occurred to me that you can’t really cover or follow a scandal unless you know who the key players are.
Denny Hastert, of course, you know.
This is Scott Palmer, Hastert’s Chief of Staff. He has been the focus of many recent Foleygate articles, but you may never have seen him. I’m impressed here by his John Grisham film ‘heavy’ look.
Palmer is sticking with the story that he didn’t hear anything about Foley and pages until late 2005. But if Kirk Fordham, Chief of Staff to Foley and later Rep. Tom Reynolds, is telling the truth, Palmer was told repeatedly and went saw far as to meet with Foley to get him to cut it out.
According to Weisman’s piece, a good candidate for the Hastert staffer most likely to get thrown under the bus is this guy, Ted Van Der Meid, counsel to Speaker Hastert. He even looks a bit worried, doesn’t he?
Finally, in the trio of key Hastert staffers under scrutiny is Michael Stokke. He’s Deputy Chief of Staff to Hastert. But he’s really more of a political fixer.
Those are the three key Hastert staffers under the microscope.
Also of possible interest are the two page supervisors.
Peggy Sampson is the page supervisor for the Republicans.
Here she’s going to speak with the Ethics Committee earlier this week.
And here is her Democratic counterpart, page supervisors Wren Ivester.
Tomorrow, if you don’t remember, Kirk Fordham, who is shaping up to be the key player in the drama, is going to speak to the Ethics Committee.
