WASHINGTON – Officials announced yesterday that nearly 50 lawmakers and aides are being summoned to testify before a new panel investigating disgraced Rep. Mark Foley’s X-rated messages to teenaged 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 underage male Congressional 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, said it might take “weeks, not months” – raising the possibility that ethics investigators could issue a bombshell report days before the November elections.
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.
Meanwhile, in another damaging revelation, Rep. Deborah Price (R-Ohio), a member of the House Republican Conference, formally 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.”
A spokeswoman for the Capitol Police had no comment about the latest charge.
Four dozen people are getting subpoenas, including a handful of members of the House Republican leadership, who were aware of complaints about Foley.
Hastings would not say whether embattled House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) – or members of his staff – were among those getting subpoenas.
But Hastert has borne the brunt of the expanding scandal 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 predatory behavior by Foley until last Friday.
“Republicans dealt with it immediately, and the culprit is gone. We are now trying to correct the problem. The bottom line is we are taking responsibility,” he said.
Also yesterday, plans to appoint ex-FBI Chief Louis Freeh to study the page program were expected to be announced by Hastert, but were put on hold in the face of fierce opposition by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats.