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Hastert: Scandal Is 'October Surprise' Ronald Kessler Calling the timing "suspicious," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said the delay in disclosing former Rep. Mark Foley's improper messages to male pages has put kids at risk. In an interview with NewsMax.com late Thursday, Hastert said anyone who knew of the sordid instant messages Foley was sending to congressional pages should have notified authorities immediately. "If somebody knew of these messages and didn't come forward, they're putting kids in jeopardy -- for a year, for a month or for a day," the Illinois Republican said. Press reports indicate that several of Mark Foley's instant messages were three years old. Other media outlets have confirmed that one or more third parties were shopping a story about Foley's e-mail almost a year ago. As evidence that Democrats were involved in the timing, Hastert said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had Foley's explicit electronic messages before Hastert did. "The DCCC was ready to go," Hastert said. "We were told by sources that they had that information on a Thursday night before we did, or Wednesday. They were up ahead of us for a day before we ever knew it was going to happen [on Friday]." Hastert said the messages came out "on the last day after Foley can't get his name off the ballot, and we're leaving for a national campaign, and then this thing falls. It's kind of an October surprise, I guess you'd call it." When he saw the Washington Times editorial calling for his resignation, Hastert said he wondered what Tony Blankley, the editorial page editor, was thinking.
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"Why didn't he talk to me?" Hastert asked. "I've known him for years. I could've told him a lot of things that he took for granted that weren't necessarily right. I'm not angry. I figure this is politics. I've learned that you don't get angry in this business, because if you do, you don't get too many things done." If he resigned as speaker, Hastert said, "That would throw us in a whole speaker's race right in the middle of an election, which means we wouldn't get our message out. And I think that would be cataclysmic to the party, it'd be cataclysmic for our message, and would not be good, period, for anybody." President Bush on Thursday called Hastert to thank him for the way he has handled the matter. "The president thanked him for going out and making a clear public statement that said the House leadership takes responsibility and is accountable," White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. Also yesterday, the House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to set up an investigative subcommittee to look into the scandal.
On Thursday in an appearance outside his district office in Batavia, Ill., Hastert said he and Republican House leaders were "taking responsibility" in the matter and that "the buck stops here." But he said he personally has not "done anything wrong," Most accounts in the mainstream press report that Hastert's office was told about Foley's more innocuous messages last fall. They usually do not add that his office took immediate action or that the Miami Herald and the St. Petersburg Times saw the same messages and thought they were simply "friendly chit chat" and not worth a story. In fact, after being told that the e-mails were "over-friendly" but not sexual, Hastert's office informed the clerk of the House, who contacted Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., the chairman of the Page Board. Shimkus and the clerk then met with Foley, a Florida Republican, and told him he should cease any communication with the page who had received the messages. Hastert's office never saw the messages because of a desire by the page's mother to protect his privacy. "You know, the press has its own values and where it wants to be," Hastert said. "The fact is I really didn't know any of this stuff until last Friday, almost a week ago. And when I did, Foley was gone within an hour." Immediately following the disclosures of Foley's explicit messages last Friday, Hastert asked attorney general Alberto Gonzalez to begin a federal probe of Foley and the case.
Double Standard That "didn't necessarily happen" with past scandals involving congressmen such as Republican Daniel B. Crane of Illinois and Democrat Gerry Studds of Massachusetts, Hastert said. "But we acted when we found out. So in that sense, there is a double standard [in the way the press has treated the current scandal and the Republican leadership]." Hastert said he looked out the window of his home in Illinois last night and saw at least a dozen trucks. "I thought I was in Folsom Prison with lights shining on my house and in the windows and in the bedroom," he said. "I thought. Man, what's going on here?' That was at three o'clock in the morning. So the press is there, and they're feeding on this, and I don't think they have much more to talk about in Washington right now, so it's just full time. They're looking for a story, for sure." As for claims by Kirk Fordham, a former aide to Foley, that he informed Hastert's office of problems with Foley and pages at least two years ago, Hastert said, "You know, people are making accusations that haven't been proven. We're going to have an investigation, we've got the FBI and the Justice Department and the attorney general in Florida doing investigations, plus the House ethics committee. I hope to get down to the bottom of this -- who knew when, where, whatever." Referring to Fordham, Hastert said, "I know what he is saying now, and what he said two or three days ago, that he worked for the man for 10 years, and he [Foley] never did anything wrong. So there's a little discrepancy in the descriptions here." Fordham's lawyer named Scott Palmer, Hastert's chief of staff, as one of the people Fordham allegedly talked with about Foley's inappropriate behavior with pages. Fordham said the discussion took place sometime between 2002 and 2004. Palmer said, "What Kirk Fordham said did not happen." Louis Freeh
Hastert said he talked with former FBI Director Louis Freeh about heading the investigation into the page scandal, but Freeh said he would have to have the agreement of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. "I ran that by her, and she just wasn't going to do anything," Hastert said. Asked if he thinks the page program should be ended, Hastert said, "We've had the page program since 1822. A lot of people in politics today came through the page program and learned a lot from it. It's a huge chance in a lifetime to do something like that if a kid's interested in government. But on the other hand, I've asked that we bring a blue ribbon panel to make sure whatever we do in the future is safe. I think that's [ending the program] one of the alternatives we honestly have to look at. We're going to find the best people, and we're going to work at it." Hastert said the scandal will have some effect in the November elections. But he said, "I think most of these races are local races, and they're going to vote on what their congressman says that he or she is going to do. But it does affect some people. What we need to do is turn it around, and I hope we can quickly." No Ideas Hastert said the Democrats will feed on the scandal because they have no ideas or substantive strategy for improving and protecting the country. "What we try to do, and what we have done, is try to move forward on our border security issues; we've done that," Hastert said. "We also have taken on terrorism and passed a lot of legislation on that. We've got the best economy we've had in years, with the stock market as high as it's ever been in the history of the U.S." In addition, "We've cut taxes and kept those tax cuts," he said. "So as a result, the economy's been great. And we've worked on energy independence, and we want to continue to work on that. So I think we have a good message to tell the American voter. I don't think the Democrats have a good message. So I think probably this whole issue of scandal just hits their agenda quite well." Ronald Kessler is Chief Washington Correspondent for NewsMax.com. Get his dispatches FREE sent you via e-mail Click Here Now.
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