Republican Resigns Over 'Sick' Email To 16-Year-Old Boy

Extracted from the Guardian, UK on Monday October 2, 2006
By Suzanne Goldenberg

The Republican leadership yesterday stood accused of covering up the activities of a Florida congressman and champion of children's rights alleged to have sent a sexually charged email to a teenage congressional page.

Five senior Republican members of Congress knew for months and remained silent over an inappropriate email sent by House of Representatives member Mark Foley to a 16-year-old male, it emerged yesterday. The scandal hits at the core Republican claims to uphold moral values - just six weeks before mid-term elections.

Mr Foley, 52, co-chair of the caucus on missing and exploited children, was a self-styled crusader for the rights of minors and called for more rigorous tracking of convicted sex offenders. He resigned on Friday after ABC News confronted him with email to one former teenage male page, a well as sexually explicit instant messages to a number of others. Republicans may decide as early as today who will defend his seat in Congress.

However, the congressman's swift exit appeared unlikely to dampen the outrage on Capitol Hill that the Republican leadership in the House knew for nearly a year about the inappropriate email and did not contact the police or their Democratic counterparts on the ethics committee.
Congressional pages in their blue uniforms are a familiar sight on Capitol Hill, and 100 teenagers are chosen each year to run errands for members of Congress.

The first inappropriate email surfaced last autumn, when a former page from Louisiana, who had worked in the office of the Republican Representative Rodney Alexander, complained to his parents and congressional staff about an email he had received from Mr Foley. The congressman had asked for a photograph of the page, who was 16, and asked if he worked out. "Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick," the former page wrote.

The existence of those email exchanges did not become public knowledge until this week, when they were reported by ABC television. The broadcaster reported that Mr Foley had engaged in sexually explicit emails with a number of male pages. In one email message, he writes: "Do I make you a little horny?"

Transcripts of those instant message exchanges appeared on the net yesterday, fuelling outrage about Mr Foley's behaviour and his party leadership's response.

Democratic leaders said Congress had failed in its duty to protect the teenage pages, and Christopher Shays, a Republican congressman from Connecticut, said any members of the Republican leadership who knew and failed to act on the email should step down.

"It's outrageous," John Murtha, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, told ABC. "We have an obligation to protect these young pages ... It really makes me nervous that they might have tried to cover this up." The Democratic minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, called for a full-scale investigation yesterday.

The White House moved swiftly to disown Mr Foley, with counsellor Dan Bartlett suggesting on CNN that the congressman might face a criminal investigation. The House Republican leadership also denounced Mr Foley's conduct. "It is an obscene breach of trust," the leadership said in a statement.

But the strongly worded statement did not shield the leadership from reports yesterday that the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, had been aware of what he called "over-friendly" email since last November. Thomas Reynolds, who leads the Republican election effort, was also aware of the email, in addition to Mr Alexander, John Boehner, the majority leader, and the Republican congressman who oversees the page programme, John Shimkus.

Mr Shimkus is reported to have warned Mr Foley not to have contact with the teenager. But Democrats say the Republican leadership should have launched a proper inquiry into Mr Foley's activities.