The resignation [of Foley] rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley's GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of inappropriate "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he then told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Boehner later contacted The Post and said he could not remember whether he talked to Hastert.
It was not immediately clear what actions Hastert took. His spokesman had said earlier that the speaker did not know of the sexually charged online exchanges between Foley and the boy.
This is just frickin' incredible! This scandal is breaking out fast and furious, tainting the entire House leadership. I know a lot of this information has already been reported on Kos and many of the other liberal and progressive blogs. This is obviously a CYA on the Republican Party’s part. However, I’m starting to wonder if this CYA is really a part of a Republican election-year strategy that was conceived back in 2005.
Boehner knew about Foley's online molestation for at least six months. Boehner would have told House Speaker Dennis Hastert about this almost immediately after he learned of this. Now Boehner is telling the WaPost that he doesn't remember when he told Hastert about Foley. It is certainly obvious that Hastert didn't do anything about Foley. This is about as crass of a CYA as you can expect from the Republican Party that is not willing to police its own party members.
Talking Points Memo has got a lot of information regarding this scandal. TPM found this Roll Call story where Chairman of the House Page Board, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) actually interviewed Foley about some of the contacts with the page about a year ago. Shimkus informed Hastert's office, however the GOP says that Hastert himself was not informed. And what is more interesting, Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI),the only Democrat on this board, was never informed of this interview.
Here's the Roll Call story:
Ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who resigned Friday after reports of his improper communications with a former male House page were made public, was interviewed about some of those contacts by the chairman of the House Page Board and the then-Clerk of the House last year.
[....]
At least four Republican House Members, one senior GOP aide and a former top officer of the House were aware of the allegations about Foley that prompted the initial reporting regarding his e-mail contacts with a 16-year-old House page. They include: Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) and Reps. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.), as well as a senior aide to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and former Clerk of the House Jeff Trandahl.
It is interesting how a lot of the top Republican leadership knew about Foley's allegations--now we have National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds in the loop on this. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) works on electing Republicans to the House of Representatives. Right now, the Republicans have a 30-seat majority in the House-—with 230 Republicans, 200 Democrats, and 1 Independent. If the Democrats can maintain control of their 200 seats, then they would need to take away 18 of the Republican House seats to become the majority party. I’m just giving an overview here—I don’t want to get into the nit-picking of the 2006 election-year strategies between the two political parties. And it will probably be difficult for the Democrats to take away 18 Republican House seats. But what I find interesting here is that NRCC Chairman Reynolds was informed of Folley’s allegations. It is Reynolds’ job to maintain Republican control of the House during the elections, and to work on expanding that control by electing more Republicans. Reynolds would have had to look at how a Foley sex scandal could damage the Republican Party’s election-year strategy, and the political consequences of not just Foley’s seat being lost to the Democrats, but the overall political damage towards maintaining the Republican majority of the House. If Reynolds was informed about Foley back in 2005, then the Republicans were worried about an election-year fallout from this scandal. Otherwise, why inform Reynolds in the first place?
The Republicans didn't want this scandal to break out. They wanted to keep this scandal contained within their own party. Had Shimkus informed Kildee of Foley's allegations, Kildee probably would have demanded a deeper investigation into Foley, which could have revealed the sexually-explicit IMs. Foley would have been forced out of the House back in 2005--just about the time when the Republican's "culture of corruption" with Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff were making big headline stories. The Republicans may have feared that if they informed Kildee, then the Democrats would have leaked this story to the press back in 2005--that certainly is possible. Then again, the press may have already known about these Foley allegations, but never reported on them because they were never verified. John Aravosis at Americablog claims he received copies of Foley's emails several months ago, but never reported the story because he could never verify them. The Republicans wanted to keep this scandal contained within their own party. Foley was a safe Republican congressional seat--a shoo-in for the midterm elections. The Republicans wanted to keep Foley in his safe seat, rather than risk this seat with a messy Republican primary scarred with a child molestation scandal--and you know the Democrats would have made this an issue in the race for Foley's seat. The Republicans thought that they could keep this scandal covered up until after the midterm elections--hang on to the Republican majority in Congress. If the scandal broke out after Foley's re-election and Foley resigned, then then Foley's seat would remain open until after a special election could be held in Florida--there is no temporary appointment for a vacant House seat. Thus, the status quo would remain regarding the party control of the House. This cover-up is about election-year strategy. And the Republican Party almost succeeded here.
And yet, the entire scandal blew up in the Republican Party's face. Foley's sexually explicit emails and IMs to the 16-year-old were revealed, and now the Republican cover-up of this scandal is breaking out--just six weeks before the midterm election. The Republican Party is trying to perform some political damage-control. According to the WaPost article:
But Forti said lawyers hope they can replace Foley's name on the ballot. At a minimum, he said, party officials can designate an alternate candidate who would be credited with all votes cast for Foley on Nov. 7. "It's a very Republican seat," Forti said, adding that Republicans "can move forward" when they have a new candidate.
Florida GOP Chairwoman Carole Jean Jordan said in a statement that executives from each county in Foley's district "will meet to choose a replacement on the ballot." Possible candidates include state Rep. Joe Negron, she said. The decision, she said, is "very time-sensitive" because the replacement "would have the opportunity to get around the district and campaign in a very short amount of time."
I'm not sure whether the Republicans can succeed in finding a replacement candidate for Foley's seat, have that replacement candidate's entire political campaign office and staff up and running, and get a political message out to the voters in less than six weeks--all while defending itself against Democrat Tim Mahoney's attacks. An even bigger question would be is there a credible Republican candidate willing to take on this task? The WaPost story tosses out state Rep. Joe Negron as a possible candidate. Is Joe Negron willing to take on this six-week political campaign? This is an almost impossible task for the Republicans.
We'll find out soon.
Update here: I found this tidbit of information off the Boston Herald:
The congressional sponsor of the page, Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., said he was asked by the youth's parents not to pursue the matter, so he dropped it.
Alexander said that before deciding to end his involvement, he [Alexander] passed on what he knew to the chairman of the House Republican campaign organization, Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y. Reynolds' spokesman, Carl Forti, said "We are not characterizing conversations that Congressman Reynolds may have had or may not have had with other members of Congress on that subject."
So it was Rep. Alexander who informed Reynolds about the Foley sex scandal. When did Alexander give Reynolds this information--and more importantly why? I'm not sure where this information fits into my original hypothesis here.
I also found another Daily Kos story by Srkp23 saying that Reynolds told Hastert about Foley and that Reynolds knew about Foley almost 11 months ago. There is no confirmation to this story, but I am certainly interested in the connection between the Herald story saying Alexander informed Reynolds, and Srkp23's diary saying Reynold's both knew about Foley almost 11 months ago and that Reynolds' also informed Hastert. I would love to learn what the timeline is as to when these top representatives informed each other, and as to who informed who regarding Foley.
Update II: It is confirmed. Roll Call has just reported that Reynolds has issued a statement Saturday saying that Reynolds informed Hastert of Foley's sex allegations just after the February 2006 GOP leadership elections. Reynolds knew about Foley back in 2006. Reynolds also would have known that a House ethics investigation into Foley's sex allegations would have quickly became public, and would have certainly jeopardized Foley's safe Republican seat to Democratic Party attacks--Foley's safe Republican seat would have became a toss-up seat. The Republican Party didn't want this sex scandal to emerge during the midterm elections. They tried to cover it up.
Update III: The Associated Press has the Reynolds' story out now.
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