Feds probe (Camping) trip that Kolbe made with pages

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15249733/

Federal prosecutors in Arizona have opened a preliminary investigation of a camping trip Congressman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., took 10 years ago that included two teenage congressional pages, a Justice Department spokesman told NBC News. NBC News first reported on the camping and rafting trip on Tuesday.

A spokesman for the Justice Department in Washington said that the U.S. attorney in Arizona has started a "preliminary assessment" of the trip, after an unidentified source made allegations about the congressman's behavior on the expedition.

"The U.S. attorney is looking into allegations about the congressman taking a trip with the two pages," the spokesman said.

As NBC News first reported, Kolbe took a tour down the Grand Canyon in July 1996 with a group that included two 17-year-old males who had recently left the congressional page program.

National Park Service employees also were on the three-day trip, along with several Kolbe staffers and the congressman's sister. Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican legislator in both houses of Congress, had not acknowledged his homosexuality publicly at the time.

[oc2002]

1. 10 years ago? and they are just now looking into it?

better late then never or is this going too far now.

[RamboLiberal]

2. Hey this happened during Clinton Administration

It's all Clinton's fault. Better investigate Clinton! :sarcasm:

[SoCalDem]

14. I bet HITLERY's travel office arranged the trip

:evilgrin: :rofl:

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. What about male Congressmen who spent time with female pages?

I expect there are far more of them.

[juajen]

8. I doubt that

It is much easier to hide same sex flirting and shenanigans.

[yodermon]

4. TPM Muckraker has a story too

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001799.php

they add,

Kolbe, who is gay, had not acknowledged his homosexuality at the time of the trip. He was once a member of the House Page Board. He's retiring from Congress at the end of this year.

We're not clear on what NBC is calling a "preliminary investigation," by the way. Typically, anything short of a formal investigation is referred to as an "inquiry" by the FBI.

[Renew Deal]

5. I don't see anything wrong with this

If the parents knew they were going on the trip. It's a shame that being a congressman has devolved into nothing more than a porno freakshow, but congressmen are supposed to be responsible adults not looking to have sex with the kids.

[havocmom]

7. Just the drumbeat for a gay purge in the GOP?

They have to keep attention off the mess they have made of the country, Constitution and the world. Kolbe dared to speak out of turn about Foley, the Speaker's office and the real world. He best be careful.

[bluestateguy]

10. I hope they do purge gays from the party

Maybe then the 23% of gays who voted for Bush in 2004 will finally come to their senses and change parties.

The Republican Party is for heterosexual, Protestant white males.

[havocmom]

12. .... Protestant white males of considerable means

To the GOP, white males without considerable means are just the means to an end, and the end us usually profit.

[Justitia]

11. Yup, I'm guessing the long knives are out. Kolbe seems like a mixed

bag to me, a spectator from another state. He voted for the DOMA (bad & hypocritical, duh), but is for civil unions and choice.

He's a mbr of the Log Cabin Repubs, AND Repubs for Choice, so he's definitely confused.

Is he a product of his district out there in AZ?

In the end, I'm of the mind that no repub is a good repub anymore....

[mikelgb]

6. the more the merrier

in a twisted shaden fruede sorta way

never understood the gay republicans

[bluestateguy]

9. Foley II?

?

[SoCalDem]

13. WHEN did Kolbe decide to "retire"?

I am wondering about the timeline here.. Maybe he got worried when pages started to talk about Foley, and he thought he might be next..