Report: Clerk Spoke of Hastert Aide’s “Over-involvement” with PagesIt sounds from the report that Ted Van Der Meid, Speaker Dennis Hastert’s counsel, had his own problems with being too close with the House pages. From pages 39-40:
According to [House Clerk Jeff Trandahl], he raised his concerns about Rep. Foley to Van Der Meid “pretty often” in the context of raising similar concerns he had relative to Van Der Meid’s over-involvement with pages assigned to the Speaker’s office. Trandahl testified, “So here is my point of contact in the Speaker (sic), and I’m trying to have the conversation about him specifically, but also in a general sense.” According to Trandahl, while Van Der Meid understood his concerns “politically,” Van Der Meid’s “pushback” was that “there is nothing wrong with people being mentors and caring about the kids.” Trandahl responded that the page program had paid professionals to serve those functions. Trandahl felt that “there needed to be a very clear line between the page program and people who worked up here [in leadership].”
Van Der Meid did not report Trandahl’s concerns about Rep. Foley’s conduct to anyone else in the Speaker’s Office… He explained that he did not elevate the Foley matter because he “got the impression that [Trandahl] was dealing with it.”… He further testified that “[Trandahl] had never asked me to take any other action,” and in any event, “I don’t know what I would have done.”
