The train wreck continues.
Yet another Republican embroiled in the Foley scandal has said that he’d spoken to Speaker Hastert about the Foley emails before they were made public — only to quickly retract the statement. In that, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) follows the example of Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who’s flipped twice in his description of a discussion with Hastert about the emails.
From the AP this morning:
Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., the congressman who sponsored the page at the heart of the furor, said Hastert “knew about the e-mails that we knew about,” including one in which Foley asked the page to send his picture.
The speaker has said he was not aware of the e-mails when they were discussed with his staff. The No. 2 House Republican, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, and House GOP campaign chairman Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, said they had spoken with Hastert about a complaint concerning a former page from Louisiana last spring, after Alexander told them about it.
Alexander quickly called up the AP to retract his statement and this is the version that hit the wires at about 1 PM:
Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., the congressman who sponsored the page at the heart of the furor, said Hastert “knew about the e-mails that we knew about,” including one in which Foley asked the page to send his picture. But he quickly backed off that comment, saying he discussed the e-mails with Hastert’s aides, not the speaker himself.
“I guess that’s a poor choice of words that I made there,” he told AP.
If Boehner’s example is any guide, Alexander should re-retract his comment sometime tomorrow.
