Hastert vows to fire anyone in a cover-up
By Noam Levey and Richard Simon
Associated Press, Oct. 11
WASHINGTON – House Speaker Dennis Hastert, whose office has been under fire for failing to deal more aggressively with former Rep. Mark Foley’s interest in congressional pages, said Tuesday he would fire anyone on his staff who covered up information in the case. The embattled Hastert continued to stand by his aides, as investigations by the FBI and House ethics committee moved forward. The Illinois Republican declined to discuss any suggestion that he should resign as speaker, as new polls showed the GOP’s prospects for holding onto control of the House in November have diminished.
“I think ... they’ve handled (the Foley matter) as well as they should,” Hastert said of his aides in Aurora, Ill., where he delivered a speech on the economy. He said that “if anybody’s found to have hidden information or covered up information, they really should be gone.” He added that many of Foley’s contacts with male pages appear to have occurred after the teenagers left Washington, suggesting that made it more difficult for Capitol Hill officials to know of the Florida Republican’s misconduct.
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On Tuesday, Rep. Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican who is retiring this year, sought to downplay suggestions that he should have done more when a page told him several years ago that he had received e-mails from Foley that made him feel uncomfortable. “I was not shown the content of the messages and was not told they were sexually explicit,” Kolbe said in a statement. “It was my recommendation that this complaint be passed along to Rep. Foley’s office and the clerk who supervised the page program. This was done promptly.” A Kolbe spokeswoman could not say precisely when the former page contacted Kolbe, saying it was between 2000 and 2002.
The scandal continues to be a hot issue in a number of campaigns nationwide. In New York, Jack Davis, the Democratic challenger to Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the House GOP campaign committee, aired a new TV advertisement attacking the incumbent for failing to move aggressively to stop Foley’s contact with pages. “Tom Reynolds knew that Congressman Mark Foley was a predator,” the ad says. “What did he do? Tom Reynolds urged Foley to seek re-election.”
Reynolds, whose committee job entails overseeing the GOP effort to retain its House majority, has said he learned last spring of Foley’s “overly friendly” contacts with pages and informed Hastert about them. Like Hastert, Reynolds has said he had no knowledge of the sexually explicit messages.
Reynolds also has found himself tied to the scandal. His chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who previously had been a longtime Foley aide, resigned from Reynolds’ office last week. He has said he warned Hastert’s staff at least three years ago that Foley had inappropriate contacts with pages – a claim Hastert’s office has disputed. Fordham is scheduled to testify Thursday before the House Ethics Committee, which is investigating how the Foley matter was handled by congressional leaders.
Over the weekend, Reynolds launched an ad in his district expressing regret that he had not pressed for a closer look into Foley’s conduct. “Nobody’s angrier and more disappointed that I didn’t catch his lies,” Reynolds says of himself.
In Pennsylvania, Republican Rep. Don Sherwood – who has run an ad apologizing for an extramarital affair – canceled fundraising appearances by Hastert and Reynolds. GOP candidates in Kentucky and Texas have also canceled Hastert fundraisers. Hastert plans to be on hand Thursday when President Bush attends a GOP fundraiser in Chicago.