Mark Foley scandal timeline

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This is a timeline for the Mark Foley scandal.

Contents 1 1995-1999 2 2000-2004 3 2005-2006 4 Fall 2006 5 References

[edit] 1995-1999

Kurt Wolfe, journalist, first outs Foley in The Advocate in 1996 partly based on comments from a former page.^[1]

Several current and former congressional employees recalled Foley approaching young male pages at parties, going back many years, and say that warnings about him were commonly passed around. Generally speaking, he was "known to be extraordinarily friendly in a way that made some [pages] uncomfortable." According to Mark Beck-Heyman, who served as a Republican page in summer 1995, "Almost the first day I got there I was warned. It was no secret that Foley had a special interest in male pages." ^[2] He charged that many people on Capitol Hill, including Republican staffers, "have known for over 11 years about what was going on and chose to do nothing."^[3] Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said on MSNBC that "I‘ve had people now on staff that used to be pages, and it was widely known to watch out for him, that he liked boys ... so pages were warned to watch out for him."^[4]

In 1996, another Republican Congressman, Jim Kolbe, who is openly gay, took a rafting trip on the Colorado River with two recently graduated, 17-year-old male pages, as well as Kolbe's sister, five of his staffers, and Gary Cummins, the deputy superintendent of the Grand Canyon National Park at the time. An anonymous participant told NBC that he was "creeped out" by the attention Kolbe paid to one of the pages, adding that Kolbe did a lot of "fawning, petting and touching" on the teenager's arms, shoulders and back. The page in question declined to address that statement, telling NBC, "I just don't want to get into this... because I might possibly be considered for a job in the administration." He did say that he had a "blast" on the trip and did not report anything improper to his parents or page officials afterwards.^[5]

Another former page, Tyson Vivyan, has said that he received "sexually suggestive" messages from Foley in 1997, a month after he left the page program.^[6] A page from the class of 1998 also reported receiving explicit IMs from Foley.^[7]

In 1997, two pages visited Foley's Washington condo where they consumed pizza and soda pop.^[6]

[edit] 2000-2004

An ex-page says that in the fall of 2000, when he was 21 years old, he engaged in sexual intercourse with Foley at the congressman's Washington residence. According to the former page's account, "[t]he two had wine and pizza on a backyard patio and then retired to a spare bedroom."^[8]

In 2000, a former page showed Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) messages from Foley that made the page feel uncomfortable. According to The Washington Post, these messages were sexually explicit, a characterization that Kolbe's press secretary denied. The Washington Post reported that Kolbe confronted Foley about the messages. Kolbe's press secretary said that unspecified "corrective action" was taken. ^[9] Kolbe later said that the former page, whom Kolbe had sponsored, told him of a "creepy" e-mail from Foley, but did not show it to him. Kolbe said that, through his staff, he passed the complaint on to Jeff Trandahl, the House Clerk, and to Foley's office. Kolbe said that he did not confront Foley about the matter, and that he recalled that the incident had taken place later than 2000.^[10]

A page from the class of 2000 reported that he chatted with Foley during the Congressman's 2000 visit to the page dormitory (see Visits and Meetings below), and that afterwards, he began receiving e-mails and IMs from Foley, which became explicit immediately after his 18th birthday.^[11]

Another page, Matthew Loraditch, stated that when he served in 2001, pages had been warned to "watch out for Congressman Mark Foley,"^[12] though he later softened his description of the warning.^[13]

ABC News reported that in 2002, Foley e-mailed one page with an invitation to stay at the congressman's home in exchange for oral sex. The page, who was 17 years old at the time, declined the offer. The same report stated that he e-mailed another with a request for a photograph of his erect penis.^[7] Another former page reports that he saw sexually explicit e-mails sent to one page from his page class of 2001-2002, and learned of "three or four" pages from that class who received similar e-mails.^[14]

Newsweek Magazine reported that in 2002 or 2003, Foley showed up at the pages' dormitory after the 10 P.M. curfew, apparently drunk, and attempted to enter the building. He was reportedly turned away by a security guard. Newsweek stated that Trandahl notified Kirk Fordham (then Foley's Chief of Staff and later Congressman Tom Reynolds' chief of staff), and that Fordham in turn contacted Scott B. Palmer, Speaker Hastert's chief of staff, describing Foley's behavior generally but not mentioning the incident at the pages' dormitory. This account further stated that Fordham followed up a couple of days later with Palmer, who replied that he had "informed the Speaker" and "dealt with it" by talking to Foley directly.^[15] On at least two different occasions, one in the summer of 2000 and one in 2002 or 2003, Foley allegedly visited the dormitory where pages live. On the first occasion, he drove up in his BMW automobile during a nighttime "mixer" party. Students came out of the dorm to talk with him and were warned away by an adult supervisor in the page program, who shooed them back inside.^[11]

In the second visit, Newsweek Magazine reported that Foley showed up at the dormitory after the 10 P.M. curfew, apparently drunk, and attempted to enter the building. He was reportedly turned away by a security guard.^[16]

Other pages have contacted ABC and the Washington Post, providing transcripts of sexually explicit instant messaging (IM) conversations from 2003 that Foley had with two pages under the age of 18 at the time.^[17][18][19] The Washington Post reported that it had received its copies of these same IMs from a page who had served on Capitol Hill with the two pages who received them.^[20]

Testifying under oath before a House ethics committee panel, Fordham said that months before he left Foley's office in January 2004, he had told Hastert's office about the conduct by Mark Foley with male teenage pages.^[21] Palmer has categorically denied that meeting between him and Fordham ever took place: "What Kirk Fordham says happened did not happen." However, on October 6 2006, a second congressional staffer corroborated Fordham's version of the events, claiming that in 2003 a meeting took place between Palmer and Foley, specifically to discuss complaints about his behavior towards pages.^[22]

In 2004, Foley sent five e-mails to a 16-year-old former page from Monroe, LA^[23] sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA). They were the first messages to be made public in the scandal.^[24][25] Among other things, Foley asked for a photo of the page, his age and birthday, and what he wanted for a birthday present. Foley observed that another page (to whom he had also written) was "in really great shape... i am just finished riding my bike on a 25 mile journey..." The page forwarded the e-mails to a colleague in Alexander's office, saying "this really freaked me out", and repeating the word "sick" 13 times to describe the photo request. The page asked "if you can, please tell Rodney [Alexander] about this", and mentioned another page who had been warned about a Congressman who "hit on" interns.^[26][27][28]

[edit] 2005-2006

Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) stated that he learned of the five initial e-mails from Foley to the 16-year old page from Louisiana in the fall of 2005, after a news reporter brought the matter to his attention.^[26] Alexander spoke to the boy's parents, who did not wish to pursue the matter beyond stopping the e-mails. Alexander's chief of staff met with Mike Stokke, Speaker Hastert's deputy chief of staff in the fall of 2005.^[29][30][26] They met with the Clerk of the House, Jeff Trandahl. Contradictory statements have made it unclear whether they actually read the e-mails.^[29][31][32] Trandahl then met with Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), chairman of the House Page Board, and Shimkus and Trandahl met privately with Foley, and Shimkus told him to cease contact with the page. The other two congresspeople on the House Page committee (including the only Democrat) were not informed, and no formal investigative or disciplinary action was taken.^[33]

In November 2005, the initial five e-mails were leaked out of Louisiana Rep. Alexander's office, after the recipient (a page who Alexander sponsored) brought them to the Congressman.^[24]

Two Florida newspapers, the St. Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald, and the Fox News Channel acquired copies of these e-mails in November 2005, but decided not to publish a story.^[34][35][36] According to an editor at the St. Petersburg Times, they received the e-mails from a source in Alexander's office.^[37]

The St. Petersburg Times editors decided the exchange was probably just "friendly chit-chat". Nonetheless, they assigned two reporters to investigate in November 2005. The recipient of the e-mail refused to cooperate with the story, and no other pages they interviewed had complaints about correspondence with Foley. The Times revisited their investigation "more than once", ultimately choosing not to break the story.^[38]

In the spring of 2006, Rep. Alexander mentioned the case to House Majority Leader John Boehner, who referred him to Rep.Reynolds (R-NY), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Both Reynolds and Boehner say that they notified Hastert; he says he can't recall that and questions whether it is true.^[30]

[edit] Fall 2006

When the story became public, Dennis Hastert claimed that he had only learned of the e-mails when the news broke in late September, 2006.^[39] Reynolds said on September 30 that he had spoken with Hastert about the matter early in 2006, after being approached by Alexander to discuss the matter. According to The Washington Post, "Republican insiders said Reynolds spoke out because he was angry that Hastert appeared willing to let him take the blame for the party leadership's silence." Hastert's office said that Hastert did not "explicitly recall" that conversation but said he did not dispute it.^[40]

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told The Washington Post that he had learned of the emails in the spring. Boehner initially said that he informed Hastert, and that Hastert assured him "we're taking care of it." After Hastert denied knowledge to the press, Boehner retracted his statement, stating that he could not recall the conversation.^[39] Boehner later stated that he was "99 percent" sure he had informed Hastert.^[41]

Ken Silverstein, an editor at Harper's Magazine, said that he received copies of the five e-mails in May 2006 from a "Democratic operative". Silverstein subsequently wrote a story on the e-mails, which was cancelled due to a lack of absolute proof that Foley was anything more than "creepy". He said that his source "was not working in concert with the national Democratic Party" but was "genuinely disgusted" by Foley's behavior. Silverstein himself passed the information to other media organizations after cancelling the story.^[42]

In July 2006, a paid Republican Congressional staffer sent copies of the e-mails to several Washington media organizations through an intermediary. ^[43] The organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said it received copies of the e-mails on July 21st and turned them over to the FBI that same day. (see Justice Department investigation, below.)

In August of 2006, ABC News reporter Brian Ross received the initial e-mails from a Republican source. He did not write a story for over a month because he was working on other stories.^[44]

On September 24, 2006, a then two-month old blog, Stop Sex Predators^[45], publicly released the e-mails. Radar Magazine speculated that the blog was set up specifially to publicize the e-mails.^[46][47] The political humor blog Wonkette drew readers' attention to the posted e-mails on September 27.^[48] The next day, September 28, Ross reported on the e-mails which he had received in August.^[44][36]

After that initial story, two sources brought copies of more explicit instant messages to ABC News and the Washington Post. Both were former pages — the first was a Republican who would "never vote for a Democrat", and the second was a Democrat from the same class as the two pages who received the messages.^[24]

Kirk Fordham, Foley's chief of staff until January 2004, and chief of staff to Congressman Reynolds from 2005 until he resigned on October 4, 2006, said that he told Scott Palmer about Foley's interest in pages in 2003, that Palmer met with Foley, and that Hastert knew about the meeting.^[49] Palmer replied that "What Kirk Fordham said did not happen",^[50] but on October 6 a second congressional staffer corroborated Fordham's account, claiming that a 2003 meeting took place between Palmer and Foley specifically to discuss complaints about his behavior towards pages.^[22]

At an October 2 press conference, Hastert called IMs "vile and repulsive." He also said that had Foley not resigned, he would have demanded his expulsion from the House. He also condemned Foley for misleading him, Shimkus and the organizations with whom he'd worked to strengthen laws against explointing children. ^[51] Hastert requested a criminal investigation of the explicit IMs, but not of the earlier, less explicit e-mails exchanged between Foley and the page sponsored by Alexander.^[52]

On October 3, the conservative Washington Times called for Hastert's resignation as Speaker over his handling of the scandal.^[53] Prominent conservatives also have called for Hastert's resignation, such as David Bossie, president of Citizens United; conservative columnist Richard Viguerie; and conservative columnist Michael Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan.^[54] Hastert has rebuffed these calls to resign, arguing he did nothing wrong and is committed to investigating the scandal and leading Congress.^[55] Boehner also defended Hastert in a letter to the editor of Washington Times. A conference call on October 2 with about 100 House Republicans had no calls for a resignation.^[56]

On October 5, Hastert accepted responsibility for the scandal but refused to step down. He said, "I haven't done anything wrong" and re-affirmed that he had only recently learned about any problems involving Foley and the pages: "I learned of this last Friday... I don't know who knew what or when - that's why we've asked for an investigation." ^[57]

On October 4, 2006, Fordham, Reynolds's Chief of Staff, resigned after newspapers reported that he had asked ABC News not to report the text of the sexually explicit instant messages. ABC reported that Fordham had offered to give them an exclusive on the resignation if they withheld the text of the IMs. Fordham had previously served as Foley's Chief of Staff.^[58] Fordham told The Associated Press that he had warned Hastert's staff about Foley in 2003.^[59] Hastert's spokesman replied, "What Kirk Fordham said never happened."^[60][61]

Subsequent responses to the scandal are covered under Responses to Mark Foley scandal.

[edit] References