FoleyGate: The Beginning of The End

While hoping to celebrate passage of the un-Constitutional 'Detain War Protestors Whenever We Want To Act' last Friday, the Republican Party has instead been forced to blow sanctimonious smoke at the American people over long-covered-up sex crimes within the Congressional Page Program.

A.B.C. News revealed the existence of a months-old complaint by a Congressional page about emails and instant messages from Congressman Mark Foley [R-FL]. The texts by Foley include explicit sexual content; the page is a 16-year-old male.

Congressman Foley immediately resigned from Congress early Friday. This leaves open his seat in Congress as well as his seat as co-chair of the House Caucus On Missing & Exploited Children {no kidding!}.

The emails were reported to Congress in July, then to the office of the House Speaker, then to the F.B.I., then to two Florida newspapers [St. Petersburg Times & Miami Herald], who all did nothing about the matter; finally, ABC reported the story at the end of September.

House Majority Leader John Boehner [R-OH] admitted that he was told of the problem six months ago; he reported the matter to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert [R-IL], who already knew about it at that time.

Nobody in Congress informed the police or the F.B.I. about the crimes, which are felonies.

Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington forwarded copies of the original emails to the F.B.I. in July 2006; the F.B.I. took no action.

It was policy at Congress for at least five years to warn new pages about Foley's practice of being 'overly attentive' to teen pages.

The F.B.I. has begun an investigation, and several politicians have already asked for an independent investigation by the U.S. Attorney General. (Cynics suggest that as soon as any investigation begins, the culprits will be 'required' to refrain from further comment 'because of the on-going investigation'.)

There are reports of recent checks for up to $100,000 paid to the R.N.C. or R.C.C.C. by Foley, which look a lot like a bribe to keep quiet.

Besides the actual crimes by Foley, he and Hastert and Boehner are liable for Federal charges of conspiracy (before and after the fact). Others already known to be involved include Congressmen Thomas Reynolds [R-NY] & chairman of the Page Board John Shimkus [R-IL], and Rodney Alexander [R-LA], who sponsored one of the page victims. Hastert, Boehner, Reynolds, Shimkus & Alexander are already given the title 'The Foley Five'.

The actual purpose of the cover-up was to retain Foley's congressional seat for the G.O.P., at the cost of further exploitation of under-age boys. (Other victims have come forward already.)