A few follow-up thoughts on the Foley scandal.

First, I find it interesting that while both the Post and the Times are currently running below the fold stories on the scandal on their websites, neither, as far as I can tell has yet devoted a story to the fact that most of the Republican House leadership has apparently known about this for almost a year and yet did nothing. I don’t think cover-up is too strong a word since there was apparently an active effort to keep the allegations from the only Democrat who serves on the Page Board. That decision, I think, speaks volumes.

Another point. A number of the leadership principals who apparently knew about this for months have made two arguments — a) that the evidence they saw didn’t clearly point to wrongdoing and b) that the matter wasn’t pursued because the parents wanted the matter dropped to protect their privacy. In the real world, I think those are mutually contradictory rationales for not pursuing the matter. If you’re dropping the matter because the parents don’t want you to pursue it, I think that means there was a problem. That also ignores the apparently criminal nature of the activity.

Finally, one detail here isn’t getting enough attention. Rep. Alexander (R-LA), the first member of Congress to be alerted to the problem, says he contacted the NRCC. That’s the House Republicans’ election committee, a political organization entirely separate from the House bureaucracy and the Congress. (The head of the NRCC this cycle is Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY).) That is, to put it mildly, not in the disciplinary and administrative chain of command of the House of Representatives. Considering that the issue involved a minor, it seems highly inappropriate to discuss the matter with anyone not charged with policing the House. More to the point, however, you tell the head of the NRCC because you see the matter as a political problem. Reynolds is the one in charge of making sure Republican House seats get held. If an incumbent might have drop out or be kicked out you want him to know so that he can line up someone to replace him. You at least want to keep him abreast of the situation if you think a problem might develop. I cannot see any innocent explanation for notifying the head of the NRCC while not information the full membership of the page board.

Every man for himself watch.

From Roll Call (sub.req.)NRCC chair, Rep. Tom Reynolds issues statement confirming that he told Speaker Hastert in early 2006 of Rep. Foley’s page problem.

“Rodney Alexander brought to my attention the existence of e-mails between Mark Foley and a former page of Mr. [Rodney Alexander’s [R-La.]. 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. Alexander has also said he took the matter to the Clerk of the House. An investigation was then conducted by the Clerk and [Illinois GOP Rep.] John Shimkus on behalf of the House Page Board.

“Mark Foley betrayed the integrity of this institution as well as the trust of his colleagues and constituents. There is no excuse, and he needs to be held accountable.”

Speaker Hastert’s aides continue to insist he was out of the loop.

To the best of my knowledge Hastert has yet to speak publicly.

“It’s vile. It’s more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction.”
–Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), commenting on President Clinton, following release of the Starr Report, September 12, 1998.

Breaking: Hastert’s office releases statement on Speaker’s office’s “internal review” …

INTERNAL REVIEW OF CONTACTS WITH THE OFFICE OF THE SPEAKER REGARDING THE CONGRESSMAN MARK FOLEY MATTER

On Friday, September 29, the Speaker directed his Chief of Staff and Outside Counsel to conduct an internal review to determine the facts and circumstances surrounding contact with the Office of the Speaker regarding the Congressman Mark Foley matter. The following is their preliminary report.

Email Exchange Between Congressman Foley and a Constituent of Congressman Alexander

In the fall of 2005 Tim Kennedy, a staff assistant in the Speaker’s Office, received a telephone call from Congressman Rodney Alexander’s Chief of Staff who indicated that he had an email exchange between Congressman Foley and a former House page. He did not reveal the specific text of the email but expressed that he and Congressman Alexander were concerned about it.

Tim Kennedy immediately discussed the matter with his supervisor, Mike Stokke, Speaker Hastert’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Stokke directed Kennedy to ask Ted Van Der Meid, the Speaker’s in house Counsel, who the proper person was for Congressman Alexander to report a problem related to a former page. Ted Van Der Meid told Kennedy it was the Clerk of the House who should be notified as the responsible House Officer for the page program. Later that day Stokke met with Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff. Once again the specific content of the email was not discussed. Stokke called the Clerk and asked him to come to the Speaker’s Office so that he could put him together with Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff. The Clerk and Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff then went to the Clerk’s Office to discuss the matter.

The Clerk asked to see the text of the email. Congressman Alexander’s office declined citing the fact that the family wished to maintain as much privacy as possible and simply wanted the contact to stop. The Clerk asked if the email exchange was of a sexual nature and was assured it was not. Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff characterized the email exchange as over-friendly.

The Clerk then contacted Congressman Shimkus, the Chairman of the Page Board to request an immediate meeting. It appears he also notified Van Der Meid that he had received the complaint and was taking action. This is entirely consistent with what he would normally expect to occur as he was the Speaker’s Office liaison with the Clerk’s Office.

The Clerk and Congressman Shimkus met and then immediately met with Foley to discuss the matter. They asked Foley about the email. 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 Clerk recalls that later that day he encountered Van Der Meid on the House floor and reported to him that he and Shimkus personally had spoken to Foley and had taken corrective action.

Mindful of the sensitivity to the parent’s wishes to protect their child’s privacy and believing that they had promptly reported what they knew to the proper authorities Kennedy, Van Der Meid and Stokke did not discuss the matter with others in the Speaker’s Office.

Congressman Tom Reynolds in a statement issued today indicates that many months later, in the spring of 2006, he was approached by Congressman Alexander who mentioned the Foley issue from the previous fall. During a meeting with the Speaker he says he noted the issue which had been raised by Alexander and told the Speaker that an investigation was conducted by the Clerk of the House and Shimkus. While the Speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynold’s recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution.

Sexually Explicit Instant Message Transcript

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. In fact, no one was ever made aware of any sexually explicit email or text messages at any time.

Another press release …

News from Congressman Dale E. Kildee
Contact: Christopher Mansour, Chief of Staff for Congressman Kildee

Congressman Dale Kildee (D-MI), the Democratic Member of the House Page Board, released the following statement today:

“As the Democratic Member of the House Page Board, any statement by Mr. Reynolds or anyone else that the House Page Board ever investigated Mr. Foley is completely untrue.

“I was never informed of the allegations about Mr. Foley’s inappropriate communications with a House Page and I was never involved in any inquiry into this matter.

“The first and only meeting of the House Page Board on this matter occurred on Friday, September 29 at approximately 6 p.m., after the allegations about Mr. Foley had become public.”

Yesterday the NRCC put more than $3.5 million into GOP congressional campaigns nationwide. Of that amount, negative ad buys accounted for all but $63,000. The list of expenditures is here.

NYT headline: “Along With Victories, G.O.P. Takes a Few Blows”

Ouch.

Reading the press release tonight from Speaker Hastert’s office is interesting on a number of levels. Here’s what jumps out at me. The entire discussion of the ‘internal review’ the Speaker’s office conducted seems intended to drive home the point that while pretty much the entire GOP House leadership knew about the Foley ‘matter’, no one beside backbencher Rodney Alexander (R-LA) actually saw the emails.

Alexander’s Chief of Staff calls Hastert’s office about emails “he and Congressman Alexander were concerned about it.” But he doesn’t tell the guy in Hastert’s office what the emails say. The two staffs meet again later. But somehow what the emails actually say? Still not discussed.

They send Alexander’s Chief of Staff to the Clerk’s Office. The Clerk asks to see the emails. But “Congressman Alexander’s office declined citing the fact that the family wished to maintain as much privacy as possible and simply wanted the contact to stop.”

When asked by the Clerk whether the emails are “of a sexual nature”, Alexander’s Chief of Staff tells him they’re not but calls them “over-friendly.”

Now, here’s the problem as far as I can see this. Supposedly, no one in a position of authority ever lays eyes on these emails, presumably because they’re relatively innocuous. But at the same time they can’t be seen by anyone else because “family wished to maintain as much privacy as possible.” Those two points don’t really square in my mind.

So the Clerk and Rep. Shimkus meet with Foley having never seen the emails in question — either because they’re basically innocuous or because of concern for the family’s privacy. Take your pick.

So they give Foley a clean bill of health having never reviewed the emails that raised the concerns.

And Hastert’s staffers?

“Mindful of the sensitivity to the parent’s wishes to protect their child’s privacy and believing that they had promptly reported what they knew to the proper authorities [the three members of Hastert’s office] did not discuss the matter with others in the Speaker’s Office.”

Basically, everyone’s so mindful of the sensitivity of the matter they manage never to investigate what actually happened. Isn’t that what they’re saying?

And also, as luck would have it, the extreme sensitivity to the parent’s feelings helps keep the entire matter hermetically sealed from Speaker Hastert.

So everyone’s very mindful of the privacy of the family. But somehow Rep. Boehner and Rep. Reynolds found out about it from Rep. Alexander. And Reynolds mentioned it to Hastert. But Hastert doesn’t remember. And Boehner told Hastert about it too. And Hastert said it was being taken care of. Only Hastert never heard about it …

Ever wonder why it seems like we are enduring a repeat of the Nixon Administration? Now we know. From Bob Woodward’s new book, via War and Piece:

A powerful, largely invisible influence on Bush’s Iraq policy was former secretary of state Kissinger.

“Of the outside people that I talk to in this job,” Vice President Cheney told me in the summer of 2005, “I probably talk to Henry Kissinger more than I talk to anybody else. He just comes by and, I guess at least once a month, Scooter and I sit down with him.” (Scooter is I. Lewis Libby, then Cheney’s chief of staff.)

The president met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making him the most regular and frequent outside adviser to Bush on foreign affairs.

Kissinger sensed wobbliness everywhere on Iraq, and he increasingly saw the situation through the prism of the Vietnam War. For Kissinger, the overriding lesson of Vietnam is to stick it out.

In his writing, speeches and private comments, Kissinger claimed that the United States had essentially won the war in 1972, only to lose it because of the weakened resolve of the public and Congress.

In a column in The Washington Post on Aug. 12, 2005, titled “Lessons for an Exit Strategy,” Kissinger wrote, “Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy.”

He delivered the same message directly to Bush, Cheney and Hadley at the White House.

The image of Henry Kissinger schooling George W. Bush on the lessons of Vietnam is enough to make a grown man cry.

The lede in the NYT Sunday piece gets it about right:

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.

Buried deep in the piece is the suggestion of a possible federal criminal investigation:

At the Justice Department, an official said that there was no investigation under way but that the agency had “real interest” in examining the circumstances to see if any crimes were committed.

The statement that Hastert’s office released late today came only “after senior aides, the House clerk and legal advisers huddled for much of Saturday in the Capitol.”

It’s a bit ironic that while denying for the past two days that they were circling the wagons back when the information about Foley first came to their attention, the GOP leadership has been . . . circling the wagons.

One still doesn’t get the sense that their focus is on the alleged victims of Foley, or on the possible unknown victims. If the allegations against Foley are true, the kind of conduct involved is rarely isolated or limited to one victim.

So what does the GOP leadership propose to do to figure out who those victims are and provide them with assistance? A toll-free telephone number for pages and their parents to report concerns. But that pre-supposes that once a report is received, the GOP will actually do something about it.