Speaker calls for inquiry on Foley

Hastert said the investigation he requested would include an inquiry into whether members of Congress and their staff had been aware of Foley's activities.

The disclosure that Foley sent inappropriate and sexually explicit messages to pages prompted the Florida representative to resign Friday and unleashed a scandal that could affect critical House races this fall.

Hastert called for the outside inquiry after high-ranking Democrats yesterday accused GOP leaders of covering up the e-mails to protect an incumbent in a year when Democrats are within striking distance of taking back control of the House for the first time in more than a decade.

Hastert, an Illinois Republican, asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to determine whether Foley broke any federal laws when he exchanged graphic e-mails with at least one page. But he also requested that the department investigate who had specific knowledge of the e-mails ``and what actions such individuals took, if any, to provide them to law enforcement."

``I request that the scope of your investigation include any and all individuals who may have been aware of this matter, be they members of Congress, employees of the House of Representatives, or anyone outside the Congress," Hastert said in the letter sent last evening.

Hastert acknowledged that some GOP members were aware of ``over friendly" messages from Foley to a former page sponsored by Representative Rodney Alexander of Louisiana in the fall of 2005, but he said he did not know about the explicit e-mails sent by Foley to another page or pages in 2003.

FBI spokesman Stephen Kodak said last night that the bureau was assessing the e-mails between Foley and teenagers but declined to comment further. Justice Department spokeswoman Donna Sellers said the agency had no immediate comment.

Patrick McDonald, a former House page who is now a senior at Ohio State University, said yesterday that he learned of ``three or four" pages from his 2001-02 class who received sexually suggestive messages from Foley, The Washington Post reported in today's editions.

Foley's activities could violate federal law, Hastert wrote, because they involve interstate communications. Soliciting an underage person for sex online is a federal crime.

Hastert also sent a letter to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, asking him to direct state law enforcement officials to investigate the matter. In one of the e-mails, Foley said he was in Pensacola.

Foley, a well-liked Florida Republican who cochaired the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, resigned abruptly Friday afternoon after ABC News confronted him with graphic, sexual computer messages between Foley and a page. The e-mails refer explicitly to sexual acts, with Foley expressing his desire to remove the teen's shorts.

A stunned House voted unanimously late Friday night to refer the matter to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, commonly known as the Ethics Committee, and the White House yesterday suggested a criminal investigation of Foley may be in order.

But with weekend revelations that House GOP leaders were aware of the e-mailing by Foley 10 months ago, Democrats yesterday charged that the Republican majority kept the matter quiet to protect its party from losing a seat in a critical election year. Polls suggest that Democrats have a chance to pick up the 15 House seats they would need to capture the majority.

``It is a nightmare for every child, parent, and grandparent to learn that a child is being stalked on the Internet by an adult in a position of authority," House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, wrote yesterday to the Ethics Committee. ``The fact that Mr. Foley was engaging in this behavior with underage children, that the Republican leadership knew about it for six months to a year and has characterized the inappropriate behavior as `overly friendly' and `acting as a mentor' and that apparently no action was taken to protect these underage children is abhorrent."

Senate minority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, agreed, saying, ``the allegations against Congressman Foley are repugnant, but equally as bad is the possibility that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives knew there was a problem and ignored it to preserve a Congressional seat this election year."

The House ethics panel is looking at whether to launch a full investigation; Pelosi and others want the panel to appoint a subcommittee immediately to scour the matter.

Republican leaders acknowledged over the weekend that GOP staff had been aware of e-mail communication between Foley and a page as early as the fall of 2005, and that Foley was told not to contact the page again. But they said they were unaware until recently of the extremely graphic e-mails Foley sent to the teen.

But Democrats said the issue raises questions about whether the GOP acted aggressively enough to protect the teenage pages.

``This should be investigated objectively. I think the Democratic leadership should have been told 10 months ago," Representative Jane Harman of California, said on ``Fox News Sunday." ``I gather that basically nothing was done except that Foley was warned."

Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, likened the episode to the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal, ``where hierarchy in the church neglected to pursue these matters aggressively."

Foley, who is 52 and single, was widely believed to be gay by his Capitol Hill colleagues, but they refrained from questioning him about his sexual orientation.

After expressing shock and disgust over the explicit e-mails, Democrats and Republicans quickly began assessing the political ramifications, aware that a single seat could make the difference in this close election year.

Republican leaders rushed to stem the political damage, denouncing Foley's behavior as ``an obscene breach of trust," and promising a fresh look at the congressional page program.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett said President Bush had no knowledge of the ``shocking revelation," and said the matter could be handled without an independent investigation. Foley may also face criminal inquiry, he said.

``The members of the House of Representatives, the leadership appear to be very aggressive in pursuing this investigation," Bartlett said on ABC's ``This Week."

GOP strategist Whit Ayres said he did not think the political fallout would extend beyond Foley, who had been expected to win a seventh term until last week's events. ``The kind of thing that has repercussions are those that reflect pattern of behavior" by the rest of the party, ``and that is not the case" with the Foley matter, Ayres said.

But Democrats say they can capture not only Foley's seat, but also use the matter to buttress a ``culture of corruption" campaign theme against the GOP.

Three other Republican representatives have been forced to quit or abandon reelection campaigns in the past year because of ethics issues.

Representative Tom Reynolds, Republican of Buffalo and chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said that he had known about the e-mails between Foley and the page, but he said he did not know the graphic content of the e-mails and was told that the teen's parents did not want the matter pursued.