The Mark Foley scandal , which broke in late September 2006, centers on soliciting e-mails and sexually explicit instant messages sent by Mark Foley, a Republican Congressman from Florida, to teenaged boys who had formerly served as congressional pages. Investigation was closed by the FLDE on September 19, 2008 citing insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges. The scandal has grown to encompass the response of Republican congressional leaders to previous complaints about Foley's contacts with the pages and inconsistencies in the leaders' public statements. There are also allegations that a second Republican Congressman, Jim Kolbe, had improper conduct with at least two youths, a 16-year old page and a recently graduated page.
The scandal led to Foley's resignation from Congress on September 29, 2006. In some quarters, the scandal is believed to have contributed to the Republican Party's loss of control over Congress in the November 7, 2006 election, as well as the end of House Speaker Dennis Hastert's leadership of the House Republicans. Kirk Fordham, chief of staff to Rep. Tom Reynolds and former chief of staff for Foley, also resigned as a result of the scandal.
The questionable conversations, which took place between 1995 and 2005, are under investigation by the FBI for possible criminal violations. In September 2008, Florida officials investigating Foley decided not to charge him, citing a lack of evidence and the expiration of the statute of limitations. The House Ethics Committee is investigating the response of the House Republican leadership and their staff to earlier warnings of Foley's conduct. In early October 2006, two news organizations quoted anonymous former pages saying they had sexual liaisons with Foley after turning 18 and 21.
Foley was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, which introduced legislation targeting sexual predators and created stricter guidelines for tracking them.
Messages
E-mails
In 2005, Foley sent five e-mails to a 16-year-old former page from Monroe, Louisiana sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA). They were the first messages to be made public in the scandal. 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 male 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 in a row to describe the photo request. The page asked "if you can, please tell Rodney about this," and in addition, mentioned a female page who had been warned about a Congressman who "hit on" interns.
ABC News reported on October 5 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. 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.
Instant messages
After the initial story on the e-mails, other pages 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. 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.
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. A page from the class of 1998 also reported receiving explicit IMs from Foley. 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.
Sources of messages and chronology
In November 2005, the initial five e-mails were leaked out of Alexander's office, after the recipient (a page whom Alexander sponsored) brought them to the Congressman.
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. According to an editor at the St. Petersburg Times , they received the e-mails from a source in Alexander's office.
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.
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.
In July 2006, a paid Republican Congressional staffer sent copies of the e-mails to several Washington media organizations through an intermediary. The organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said it received copies of the e-mails on July 21 and turned them over to the FBI that same day. (See Justice Department investigation, below.)
In August 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.
On September 24, 2006, the e-mails were released by Lane Hudson on his anonymous blog Stop Sex Predators . Hudson was at the time employed by the Human Rights Campaign. When the HRC found out about Hudson's activity during the week of October 25, 2006, it publicly fired him for misusing its resources. At the time of his firing, the Board of Directors of HRC included Jeff Trandahl, who also had prior knowledge and involvement with the issue.
The political humor blog Wonkette drew readers' attention to the posted e-mails on September 27 . The next day, September 28, Ross reported on the e-mails which he had received in August.
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.
Physical contact
In early-October 2006, two news organizations quoted anonymous former pages as saying that they had sexual liaisons with Foley after they turned 18 and 21, respectively.
Visits and meetings
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.
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.
Other non-sexual meetings include a dinner with one former page, then 17, after which he invited the youth back to his hotel room and "touched his leg", and a visit by two pages in 1997 to Foley's Washington condo where they consumed pizza and soda. Another page reported that Foley repeatedly invited him out for ice cream.
Sexual liaisons
Though Foley is not alleged to have engaged in sexual relations with pages during the time of their service, he allegedly entered, on at least two occasions, into sexual relationships with ex-pages.
In communications with one of the pages, who has chosen to remain anonymous, Foley appears to emphasize that while he assesses the attractions and orientation of pages, he waits until they have left the program to engage the youth in erotic activities: "I always knew you were a player but I don't fool around with pages."
The Los Angeles Times contacted the anonymous former page, according to a report in the paper on October 8 , "after others identified him as someone whose contacts with Foley went beyond graphic messages." The page said that after leaving the page program, he began receiving instant messages from Maf54, Mark Foley's
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