Foley panel says GOP lawmakers negligent

WASHINGTON -- The House ethics committee concluded yesterday that House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and his top staff probably knew for months, if not years, of then-Representative Mark Foley's inappropriate contact with former House pages but did nothing to protect the teenagers.

Top GOP House leaders also "failed to exercise appropriate diligence" in the matter, the committee's report found, and tried "to remain willfully ignorant of the potential consequences of Foley's conduct."

The ensuing scandal contributed to the Republicans' losses in the midterm elections. The report speculated that some officials were reluctant to act too aggressively for fear of exposing Foley's homosexuality or for political reasons.

But the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct decided against taking any action against the leaders, aides, or House officials involved in the saga, declining even to describe their actions as bringing ill repute on the House.

"The requirement that members and staff act at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House does not mean that every error in judgment or failure to exercise appropriate oversight and sufficient diligence establishes a violation" of House rules, the long-awaited report concluded.

The committee's bipartisan inquiry was launched two months ago after reports by ABC News that Foley, a Florida Republican, had sent sexually explicit online messages to male former House pages. The 89-page report is sharply critical of Hastert and his chief of staff, Scott Palmer, and chief counsel, Ted Van Der Meid.

The report also chided House majority leader John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, for not showing sufficient curiosity in the matter, and retiring Representative Jim Kolbe, Republican of Arizona, is criticized for failing to divulge Foley's actions .

Democratic aides are also criticized, for shopping around Foley e-mails to media outlets as far back as November 2005, apparently for political gain.

To critics of Congress, the report's release in the final hours of the session is a fitting end to a Congress tainted by scandal, indictments, and resignations. Next month, Hastert will take a seat in a new, Democratic-controlled House as a back-bench member of the minority.

"It is unfathomable that the ethics committee has held no member or staff member individually accountable for the manner in which the Foley scandal was handled in the House," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a watchdog group.

Two former pages whose revelations added to the scandal expressed disappointment with the committee's decision not to discipline those who knew about Foley's behavior. One page , involved in providing the first questionable e-mails to the media, said, "I'm surprised they aren't doing anything, but it's not shocking, given the lack of real accountability we've seen in Congress in general."

The other former page, whom Foley propositioned after the boy had left the page program, said, "My fear is that by not holding anyone accountable it sets a precedent that political fallout is more important than young people's safety."

Committee members of both parties defended their conclusions. "This is not the jury-rigged result of a series of compromises," said Representative Howard Berman of California, the committee's ranking Democrat.

Hastert issued a statement late yesterday stressing that the investigation had uncovered no evidence that any House member, officer, or employee or even member of the media knew of the overtly sexual instant messages that led to Foley's sudden resignation.

Much about Foley has been made public, but the committee's report breaks new ground.

As far back as 1995, the year Foley took office as part of the Republican takeover, Jeff Trandahl, then assistant clerk of the House, saw Foley as a nuisance for lavishing inordinate attention on pages. Trandahl, who would be elected clerk in 1999, testified that he thought of Kolbe, an openly gay House Republican who is retiring this year, the same way.

Peggy Sampson, the Republicans' chief page supervisor, said Foley's behavior had given her a "creepy feeling" for years. Evidence emerged that on two separate occasions, Foley went to the page dormitory late at night.

In the first incident, before 2000, he was suspected of being intoxicated and was turned away by Capitol Police. In another incident, in June 2000, he reportedly appeared in his convertible during the pages' end-of-semester "all-night party" and sped off with at least two pages before supervising staff could react.

Perhaps the biggest revelations involved Kolbe. The Washington Post reported in October that one of his former pages had received a sexually explicit instant message from Foley, which the former page had shown to Kolbe as long ago as 2000. After the story appeared, Kolbe said that the contact was with his staff, not him, that he did not see it, and that he was unaware it was explicit.

Kolbe's assistant, Patrick Baugh, told the committee that the former page had contacted Kolbe directly and revealed the explicit nature of the message.

Moreover, after the Foley matter exploded in the media, the former page contacted Kolbe again to ask whether he should divulge the instant message of 2001. He testified that Kolbe responded: "It is best that you don't even bring this up with anybody. . . . There is no good that can come from it if you actually talk about this."