| Topic: |
Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"James" |
| Date: |
06 Oct 2006 11:55:50 PM |
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Staffer Cites Earlier Role by Hastert's Office |
Staffer Cites Earlier Role by Hastert's Office
Confrontation With Foley Detailed
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 7, 2006; A01
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 onetime
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.
"We are not preparing to cooperate. We are affirmatively seeking to,"
Heaphy said.
Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean declined to directly comment on the
second House staff member's assertion, saying that it is a matter for
a House ethics committee investigation. "The Standards Committee has
asked that no one discuss this matter because of its ongoing
investigation," Bonjean said.
The emergence of a second congressional staffer describing such a
meeting came on a day that Hastert (R-Ill.) was working to solidify
his hold on the speakership. Prominent Republicans, including
President Bush, have defended Hastert, saying he should not step down,
but the criticism continues to flow.
New Jersey's Thomas H. Kean Jr., whose candidacy offers the GOP its
most promising hope to take a Senate seat from a Democrat in November,
called for Hastert's resignation yesterday, as did the editorial page
of the Los Angeles Times. Democratic House candidate Patty Wetterling
of Minnesota, a child-safety advocate and the first to air a
television commercial about the Foley scandal, will deliver the
national Democratic response to Bush's weekly radio address today.
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.
Palmer has resolutely said he had no earlier meeting with Foley, and
other leadership aides have questioned the truthfulness of Fordham.
Fordham quit his job as Reynolds's chief of staff last week after
acknowledging that he had tried to persuade ABC News not to publish
the salacious instant-message exchanges between Foley and two former
pages.
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.
Sources close to Fordham say Trandahl repeatedly urged the longtime
aide and close family friend to confront Foley about his inappropriate
advances on pages. Each time, Foley pledged to no longer socialize
with the teenagers, but, weeks later, Trandahl would again alert
Fordham about more contacts. Out of frustration, the sources said,
Fordham contacted Palmer, hoping that an intervention from such a
powerful figure in the House would persuade Foley to stop.
Now, a second House aide familiar with Foley and his actions told The
Washington Post yesterday that "Scott Palmer had spoken to Foley prior
to November 2005." The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity
because the matter is now the subject of a criminal investigation and
the House ethics committee inquiry.
Two law enforcement officials said yesterday that the FBI had not yet
determined whether a crime had occurred in the Foley case. Justice
Department and FBI officials have cautioned that cases involving the
enticement of minors are notoriously difficult to prosecute.
On Wednesday night, Palmer was described as highly emotional while
aides sifted through e-mails and files to determine whether he had
ever spoken to Fordham. Several people who spoke with Palmer said the
chief of staff was emphatic in denying that he knew anything about
Foley's questionable contacts with young male pages.
Palmer, who shares a townhouse with Hastert when they are in town, is
more powerful than all but a few House members. Members know that he
speaks for Hastert.
The divergent accounts have highlighted the holes in the public's
understanding of Foley's undoing. And they are sure to ratchet up the
pressure on Trandahl to come forward with his knowledge of events. As
House clerk between January 1999 and November 2005, Trandahl had
direct control over the page program.
Pages apparently saw Trandahl as a strict disciplinarian. In one
instant-message exchange obtained by The Post, a former page, on his
way to his first annual reunion in Washington, told Foley in January
2003 that "everyone is going to be pretty wasted a lot of the time in
dc."
He then added, "well we dont have the [expletive] clerk to fire us
anymore. . . . we didnt like trandahl that much . . . he isnt a nice
guy . . . and he gets really scarey when he is mad."
Trandahl's departure came within days of his confrontation with Foley
over e-mails that the congressman had sent a former page. House aides
say the circumstances of Trandahl's exit were oddly quiet. The
departure of a staff member of long standing, especially one as
important as the House clerk, is usually marked with considerable
fanfare, said Scott Lilly, a former Democratic staff director of the
House Appropriations Committee. Debate is suspended in mid-afternoon
to accommodate a stream of testimonials from lawmakers.
Trandahl's departure was marked by a one-minute salute from Shimkus
and a brief insert into the Congressional Record.
"My one-hour Special Order changed to a five-minute Special Order, now
to a one-minute," Shimkus said. "I just want to say thank you for the
work you have done."
Lilly said: "He seemed to suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke."
Trandahl, now the executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation, has not returned repeated phone calls and e-mails.
Congressional aides point to another factor that links Trandahl to the
Foley matter. A member of the board of the national gay rights group
Human Rights Campaign, Trandahl is openly homosexual and personally
close to the now-disgraced former lawmaker, who announced through his
lawyer this week that he is gay.
Staff writers Jim VandeHei, Charles Babington, Dan Eggen and Allan
Lengel contributed to this report.
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