Kolbe Takes Hit from Foley Report

As we tear through the new House ethics report, we’ll bring you updates of the juicy stuff we find.

First up, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), who comes out looking very, very bad.

A former House page told the committee that he sent Kolbe, to his personal email account, a copy of an instant message he received from Foley in 2001 in which Foley had “made reference to the page’s penis size.”

When the committee asked Kolbe about this, he said he couldn’t recall whether the page had contacted him or his assistant or whether it was by phone or email. What’s more, he said he never knew the specifics of the young man’s allegation against Foley, and “did not attempt to speculate.”

As if that isn’t bad enough, Kolbe appears to have tried to keep the kid quiet when the scandal broke: the former page also told the committee that he’d called Kolbe after the Foley story broke this September and asked for advice. He says Kolbe replied that “it is best that you don’t even bring this up with anybody…. There is no good that can come from it if you actually talk about this. The man has resigned anyway.”

Kolbe’s side of the story? He told the committee that “the page had already decided that he was not going to report the IM, and the he merely responded, ‘That’s your decision.'”

But The Washington Post caught wind of the page’s story anyway. And soon after being contacted by a Post reporter about it, Kolbe called the page and left a message: “It looks like you did some talking.”

We’ve posted the relevant section of the report here.