House Ethics Committee Issues Subpoenas In Foley Case
POSTED: 11:19 am PDT October 5, 2006
UPDATED: 12:00 pm PDT October 5, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The House ethics committee approved four dozen subpoenas for
documents and testimony Thursday, launching an investigation of a
congressional page sex scandal that has imperiled Republican prospects in
next month's elections.
The committee's chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said a newly formed
subcommittee's investigation "will go wherever our evidence leads us."
Asked if embattled House speaker Dennis Hastert was among those subpoenaed,
Hastings would not comment.
"We are looking at weeks, not months," said the committee's senior Democrat,
Rep. Howard Berman of California.
A House GOP official said that Hastert, fighting to save his job, will take
responsibility for the unfolding scandal but insist that he will stay on as
leader of House Republicans at a news conference scheduled later in Batavia,
Ill.
Hastert will ask former FBI director Louis Freeh to also examine the page
system and make recommendations on how to improve the program, almost as old
as the Congress itself. Freeh headed the FBI from 1993 to 2001 during Bill
Clinton's presidency.
Hastert also will also ask the Ethics Committee to consider new rules so
that anyone making inappropriate contact with pages be disciplined. In the
case of staff, they would be fired; lawmakers would be subject to expulsion,
the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to not upstage
Hastert.
Hastings said the subpoenas cover lawmakers and staff as well as appointed
officers of the House.
Hastert praised the ethic committee's actions and said he would instruct his
attorney to cooperate with the panel "in getting to the bottom of this."
"The committee is moving to get control of this situation and find answers
to provide all of us peace of mind," he said in a statement.
"Any person who is found guilty of improper conduct involving sexual contact
or communication with a page should immediately resign, be fired, or
subjected to a vote of expulsion," Hastert said.
Copyright 2006 by KTVU.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
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