Staffer Cites Earlier Role by Hastert's Office:Confrontation With Foley

[cal04]

Confrontation With Foley Detailed

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member with personal knowledge of Foley and his behavior with pages said yesterday.

The staff member said Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, met with the Florida Republican at the Capitol to discuss complaints about Foley's behavior toward pages. The alleged meeting occurred long before Hastert says aides in his office dispatched Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.) and the clerk of the House in November 2005 to confront Foley about troubling e-mails he had sent to a Louisiana boy.

The staff member's account buttresses the position of Foley's one-time chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who said earlier this week that he had appealed to Palmer in 2003 or earlier to intervene, after Fordham's own efforts to stop Foley's behavior had failed. Fordham said Foley and Palmer, one of the most powerful figures in the House of Representatives, met within days to discuss the allegations.

Palmer said this week that the meeting Fordham described "did not happen." Timothy J. Heaphy, Fordham's attorney, said yesterday that Fordham is prepared to testify under oath that he had arranged the meeting and that both Foley and Palmer told him the meeting had taken place. Fordham spent more than three hours with the FBI on Thursday, and Heaphy said that on Friday he contacted the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to offer his client's cooperation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100601888.html

[jezebel]

1. This is pretty huge isn't it?

Or is the fact that the staffer is anonymous going to dilute the story?

[originalpckelly]

9. Well it doesn't connect Hastert to the Foley mess, but it puts it in his-

office. The key here is whether Hastert was told then or not. If he was told, then his ass is basically grass. If not, well that is a whole weird set of events.

[blitzen]

10. does imply that hastert's office engineered removal of house clerk

who was trying to control foley.....incidentally, the former clerk is openly gay and a close friend of foley's

[originalpckelly]

12. Yes, I hadn't read that part, just the part about Hastert's chief of staff

I now have a feeling that Hastert knew about the Foley crap; the Chief of staff wouldn't have been able to fire the clerk without Hastert knowing why. Yes, in an indirect way this says Hastert knew about Foley's odd behavior.

[originalpckelly]

13. Not to imply anything malicious, but it does seem that a lot of these...

people are gay, doesn't it? I wonder if that has any meaning to the case.

[blitzen]

14. lawrence o'donnell was saying on msnbc the other night that this

will soon morph into a "gay" vs. "straight" GOP staffer conflict....that the many gay staffers are being thrown under the bus and are fighting back...this would explain fordham's willingness to spill the beans

[blitzen]

15. here's a link to a relevant o'donnell piece

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x239067

[tblue37]

16. They are referred to inside the Beltway as

the "Velvet Mafia" or the "Lavender Bund."

It's the hypocrisy that really gets me. These guys willingly work for gay-bashing Repubs, because like all Repubs, their mantra is "I've got mine--screw you."

Karma is a bitch.

[Botany]

2. either way it is very bad news for Hastert

Palmer's meeting w/ Foley to tell him to stop it or
Fordham telling Hastert's staff 3 years ago no matter
which side you believe it shows Denny knew about
Foley a long time ago.

[originalpckelly]

11. Not really.

We now know that Hastert's office covered Foley's behavior up, but there are some things that are still unknown:

1. What did Foley's chief of staff learn of that made him go to Hastert's chief of staff?

2. Did Hastert's chief of staff not tell Hastert, and why?

There are a number of other unknowns, but they are all dependent upon the answers to those two questions; I won't go into them.

[Oilwellian]

17. The article clearly states Hastert was told

Hastert maintains that he knew nothing of Foley's actions until last week, when the story first broke and Foley resigned. His stance contradicts that of House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), both of whom said they had informed Hastert this spring.

[Rose Siding]

3. Buh bye Mr Palmer. Hastert got set up on this in yesterday's presser-

QUESTION: Nobody's admitted it to you?

No one in your own staff has acknowledged knowing the seriousness of the problem, one, two or three years ago and, certainly, no one told you about it?

HASTERT: No.

QUESTION: And, if they didn't, were they derelict?

HASTERT: I didn't hear the rest of your question.

QUESTION: Were they derelict, Mr. Speaker, if they didn't let you know what was going on?

HASTERT: Well, my staff has been -- if somebody didn't let us know, then there's a problem. And I think the investigation will find that out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/05/AR2006100500938.html?nav=rss_politics

[stumblnrose]

5. I've got a hard on about this

Having been molested as a child by right wing god fearing xians but I think they all are in the same behavioral boat. Palmer and Hastert are room mates.

[seabeyond]

4. foley has been disciplined before the emails? oh, so THEY did

know about it and didnt do anything about it knowing htere was an issue. complaints before... as in plural, more than one

[longship]

6. My gawd. They're lying about it.

There's something very, very foul going on here. If they are telling stories which are so clearly and unambiguously contradictory, somebody is telling some whoppers here.

My GAWD!! The GOP is truly fucked.

[blitzen]

7. wow, looks like they dumped the house clerk who was trying...

to rein in foley!!!

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Here's an idea:

Let's keep the page system intact, and just fire all the Congressmen?

[Oilwellian]

18. Key paragraph

Hastert's office contends that the first confrontation with Foley occurred in November 2005, when Shimkus, the head of the House Page Board, and then-House Clerk Jeff Trandahl took Foley aside to discuss what they termed "over-friendly" e-mails that Foley had sent to a Louisiana boy. Fordham's account not only pushed the matter back at least two years but also indicated that alarms over Foley's behavior had gone well beyond bland e-mails.