WASHINGTON – Officials announced yesterday that nearly 50 lawmakers and aides are being summoned to testify before a new panel investigating disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley’s X-rated messages to teenage Capitol pages, putting top Republican leaders under the gun in a rapidly mushrooming scandal.
A newly formed ethics subcommittee, assigned to investigate Foley’s creepy behavior with the underage pages – and whether House leaders dragged their feet in getting rid of him – held its first official session, and its members pledged a serious and far-reaching probe.
“We pledge to you that our investigation will go wherever the evidence takes us,” said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the ethics committee chairman.
California Rep. Howard Berman, the lead Democrat on the panel, said it might take “weeks, not months” – raising the possibility that ethics investigators could issue a bombshell report days before the elections.
One of those expected to be subpoenaed include a former page, now 21 years old, who is believed to have traded explicit instant messages with Foley.
The ex-page, originally from California, could not be reached for comment at his home in Oklahoma City. He is working there on Republican Congressman Ernest Istook’s gubernatorial campaign.
The former page has hired high-powered lawyer Stephen Jones, who once represented Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
“This is a young man who is bright,” Istook said yesterday. “He is hardworking. He does not deserve the public embarrassment that he’s facing right now.”
ABC News reported last night that three more pages had come forward with allegations that Foley wanted to engage in lewd conduct with them and sought X-rated pictures of them.
In another damaging revelation, Rep. Deborah Price (Ohio), a member of the House Republican Conference, requested a probe of new reports circulating that Foley was once stopped by Capitol Police from entering a residence hall where congressional pages are temporarily housed – while he was in “an intoxicated state.”
The Capitol Police had no comment.
Four dozen people are getting subpoenas in the ethics subcommittee’s probe, including a handful of members of the House Republican leadership who were allegedly aware of complaints about Foley.
Hastings would not say whether embattled House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) – or members of his staff – were among them.
But Hastert has borne the brunt of the scandal’s fallout and is fending off calls for his resignation for allowing Foley to continue serving in Congress – and head of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited children – despite complaints about him going back as far as three years. Hastert said he would not step down as speaker.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” he told reporters outside his district headquarters in Batavia, Ill.
“I’m going to run and presumably win this election and, when I do, I expect to run for speaker,” he said a day after several Republicans questioned his ability to lead, some even canceling campaign appearances with him.
Hastert, desperate to avoid a GOP electoral bloodbath in 32 days, continued to deny knowing about Foley’s predatory behavior until last Friday.