WASHINGTON Investigators looking into an ex-congressman's come-ons to teenage male assistants will have to resolve major conflicts in what the top two House Republicans have said they knew about the matter and when they learned it.
House Majority Leader John Boehner, who spoke to the House ethics committee in closed session Thursday, said he was not backing down from previous statements in which he said he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert months ago about questionable e-mails Republican Congressman Mark Foley sent to a former assistant from Louisiana. Hastert, the leader of the House of Representatives, says he learned of the e-mails on Sept.29, the day Foley resigned his seat.
"I made myself clear on the record for the last three weeks, and I told the ethics committee today the same thing that I've told many of you," Boehner, a Republican who has the House's second-highest post, told reporters after his testimony. Hastert has said he doesn't remember the conversation with Boehner, or a second warning about Foley that Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds has said he also gave the speaker earlier this year. The ethics committee has yet to hear from Hastert and his top aides, who have their own conflicting stories about when they learned about Foley. The Foley case could affect not just Hastert's future but the prospects for control of the House when voters cast ballots in the Nov. 7 congressional elections. Republicans are working to hold onto their majority in both chambers of Congress. Democrats could get a majority in the House with 15 more seats; in the Senate, they would need six. All 435 House seats are up for a vote, and 33 of the 100 Senate seats are on the ballot. House investigators have heard from most of the other key players in the Foley matter. The committee was not expected to question witnesses Friday. Former House Clerk Jeff Trandahl testified Thursday about his contacts with the speaker's aides regarding the assistants, known as pages, who are high school students who perform errands and other services for lawmakers.Trandahl was known to keep a close watch over the pages and would have been the official to inform the speaker's office about inappropriate conduct toward them.
A Republican aide close to Trandahl but not directly familiar with his testimony said the longtime House aide was in frequent contact with top Hastert aides, including counsel Ted Van Der Meid and chief of staff Scott Palmer, about the page program. The aide said he was not authorized to be quoted by name. Former Foley chief of staff Kirk Fordham has said publicly that in 2002 or 2003 he told Palmer about Foley's inappropriate behavior toward the pages, while Palmer said Fordham's version of events was inaccurate. An internal report from Hastert's office said the staff first learned about the e-mails from Foley to the former Louisiana page in the fall of 2005. The speaker said this was the first notification of trouble, and he threatened to fire his own aides if they covered up earlier warnings. "Jeff Trandahl has cooperated fully with the investigation being conducted by the FBI and the ...Committee on Standards (the ethics committee). He answered every question asked of him," Trandahl's attorney, Cono Namorato, said in a statement after Thursday's testimony.
Namorato said Trandahl would not comment while the investigation is ongoing.He did not return calls seeking comment beyond his prepared statement.
As a result of the warning to Hastert's aides in the fall of 2005, Trandahl and Republican Congressman John Shimkus, chairman of the five-member board overseeing the page program, confronted Foley. Foley told them he was acting as a mentor to the Louisiana page, but the two officials ordered him to stop e-mailing the youngster, then 16, according to Shimkus' account.
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