Mark Foley scandal
The Mark Foley scandal, which broke in late September 2006, centers on soliciting emails and sexually suggestive 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 Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) on September 19, 2008 citing insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges as both "Congress and Mr. Foley denied us access to critical data," said FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey.[1] The scandal grew 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.[2][3][4][5][6] There were 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.[7][8]
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 2006 midterm elections, 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.
Newsweek's June 7, 2010, issue's Back Story listed Foley, among others, as a prominent conservative politician who had a record of anti-gay legislation and was later caught in a gay sex scandal.[9]
The questionable conversations, which took place between 1995[10][11][12] and 2005, were investigated 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.[13] The House Ethics Committee investigated the response of the House Republican leadership and their staff to earlier warnings about Foley's conduct.[14] In early October 2006, two news organizations anonymously quoted former pages who said that they had sexual liaisons with Foley after turning 18 and 21.[15][16] 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[edit]
Emails[edit]
In 2005, Foley sent five emails to a 16-year-old former page from Monroe, Louisiana[17] who had been sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander (R–LA). They were the first messages to be made public in the scandal.[18][19] 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 [Alexander] about this", and in addition, mentioned a female page who had been warned about a congressman who "hit on" interns.[20][21][22]
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.[15] Another former page reported 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.[23]
Instant messages[edit]
After the initial story on the emails, 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 who were under the age of 18 at the time.[24][25][26] The Washington Post reported it had received its copies of the same IMs from a page who had served on Capitol Hill with the two pages to whom they had been addressed.[27]
Another former page, Tyson Vivyan, said that he had received "sexually suggestive" messages from Foley in 1997, a month after he left the page program.[12] A page from the class of 1998 also reported receiving explicit IMs from Foley.[15] A page from the class of 2000 reported he chatted with Foley during the Congressman's 2000 visit to the page dormitory, and afterwards, he began receiving e-mails and IMs from Foley, which became explicit immediately after his 18th birthday.[28]
Sources of messages and chronology[edit]
In November 2005, the initial five e-mails were leaked out of Alexander's office, after the recipient (a page whom Alexander sponsored) reported them to the Congressman.[18]
Two Florida newspapers, the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald, and the Fox News Channel acquired copies of these e-mails in November 2005, but decided not to publish a story.[29][30][31] According to an editor at the St. Petersburg Times, they received the e-mails from a source in Alexander's office.[32]
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 reporters, 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.[33]
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.[34]
In July 2006, a paid Republican Congressional staffer sent copies of the e-mails to several Washington media organizations through an intermediary.[35] 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.
In August 2006, ABC News reporter Brian Ross received the initial e-mails from a Republican source but did not write a story for over a month because he was working on other stories.[36]
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.[37] 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.[38] The next day, September 28, Ross reported on the e-mails which he had received in August.[31][36]
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.[18]
On November 20, 2015, it was revealed that Zack Stanton, a congressional page from 2001 until 2002, was the source of the transcripts provided to ABC and The Washington Post.[39]
Foley's response[edit]
After the initial e-mails had been publicized, Foley's office confirmed that Foley had sent the messages but said they were innocuous, and accused his election opponent of orchestrating a smear.[36]
Shortly after being questioned by ABC about the more explicit IMs – and before they had been publicly revealed – Foley resigned from Congress.[42][43] The congressman issued a statement, saying, "I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent."
Kirk Fordham, chief of staff to representative and National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Reynolds of New York, and former chief of staff to Foley, said that he was with Foley when ABC confronted him with the explicit IMs. Fordham said that he asked Foley if they were authentic, and that Foley replied, "Probably."[44] According to Newsweek, Foley "knew he was finished." Fordham then visited GOP headquarters to inform Hastert and Reynolds; he returned with a one-sentence resignation letter that Foley signed.[45] A short time later, Foley submitted his resignation to Governor Jeb Bush and left the capital.
Once the scandal broke in full, Foley had virtually no chance of staying in Congress. Hastert and Reynolds let it be known that if Foley did not sign the resignation letter, they would have sought his expulsion from the House. Polls showed him losing badly to his Democratic challenger, businessman Tim Mahoney.
On October 2, Foley checked himself into a rehabilitation clinic for alcoholism.[46] On October 3, Foley's lawyer stated, "Mark Foley has never, ever had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor in his life. He is absolutely, positively not a pedophile." He also stated that Foley himself was a victim of sexual assault by an unnamed clergyman as a child, that the inappropriate conversations were the result of a secret alcohol problem and primarily occurred while Foley was intoxicated, and that Foley is gay.[47][48][49][50][51] Previously, when confronted with speculations that he was gay, Foley labeled them "revolting and unforgivable".[52] However, Foley's sexuality had been an open secret in Washington for many years.[45]
Alleged molestation of Foley[edit]
After demands to do so,[53][54] Foley privately identified the priest he alleged had abused him as a child. However, the public revelation of his identity, Anthony Mercieca, a 69-year-old Catholic priest now living in Malta, came through the investigative reporting of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.[55]
Parallel to Foley's disclosure, Mercieca held several interviews in which he described a two-year relationship with Foley from when the youth was a 13-year-old altar boy at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Lake Worth, Florida, until he was 15. He told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune about a number of intimate occasions that the priest claimed "Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate", such as "massaging Foley while the boy was naked, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth and being naked in the same room on overnight trips." Mercieca hinted at an even more intimate event, which he claimed took place while he was under the influence of tranquilizers and alcohol, and which he could not clearly recollect, and that he taught Foley "some wrong things" related to sex, which he did not specify.[56]
In a separate AP interview, he recounted that: "We were friends and trusted each other as brothers and loved each other as brothers. It was not what you call intercourse ... There was no rape or anything ... Maybe light touches here or there."[57] He told a Florida TV station that it was not abuse, which is against someone's will: "He seemed to like it, you know? So it was sort of more like a spontaneous thing." The Archdiocese of Miami issued a statement apologizing to Foley for "the hurt he experienced" from the priest's "morally reprehensible" actions, and suspended Mercieca's faculties.[58]
According to Mercieca, he had last seen Foley at a dinner meeting 18 years before, in a restaurant in Lake Worth.[59] When asked whether he had anything to say to Foley, Mercieca said, "Remember the good times we had together, you know, and how well we enjoyed each other's company." He added, "Don't keep dwelling on this thing, you know?"[60] Mercieca could not be prosecuted for his activities with Foley because the relevant statutes of limitations had expired, and the Palm Beach County state attorney's office "cannot conduct an investigation because Foley has declined to press charges."[58]
A childhood friend of Foley's, Jon Ombres, confirmed the close friendship between the two, and suggested that there may have been a second priest, sexually interested in youths and with whom Foley was on good terms, active in the parish at that time.[56] As of October 25, Mercieca faced new accusations, leveled by a former altar boy who claims having been abused by him in the seventies at the age of twelve.[61] Mercieca, speaking through his lawyer, denied the second accusation, claiming that it is "at best as a figment of the imagination and at worst a malicious fabrication." On July 18, 2007, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami settled a lawsuit brought against it by the former altar boy. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The lawsuit had sought more than $10,000,000 in damages.[62]
Investigations[edit]
House Ethics Committee[edit]
Late on September 29, 2006, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) offered a resolution to direct the House Ethics Committee to create a subcommittee to investigate Foley and the Republican leadership. Boehner moved to immediately refer Pelosi's resolution to the Ethics Committee without further debate and the House unanimously agreed.[121][122]
On October 5, 2006, the House Ethics Committee met and established a subcommittee to investigate the page sex scandal.[123] The House subcommittee members are Reps. Doc Hastings (R-WA), Howard Berman (D-CA), Judy Biggert (R-IL), and Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH). The subcommittee has already sent subpoenas and has appointed Louis Freeh as a special advisor. The committee opened an expansive investigation into the unfolding scandal on 5 October 2006 by approving nearly four dozen subpoenas for witnesses and documents.[124]
The Ethics Committee has no power over Foley, who is no longer a member of Congress. As a result, its chairman has said it will focus on the "conduct of House members, officers and staff related to information concerning improper conduct involving members and current and former pages".[125]
On December 8, 2006, the committee reported the investigation's conclusion, finding Hastert and other Republican leaders negligent, but not in violation of any House rules. The panel did not recommend any sanctions for their failure to stop Foley. The investigation validated Trandahl's and Fordham's reports and concluded that Hastert's chief of staff first learned of Foley's conduct in 2002 or 2003, and that Hastert's chief counsel had been aware of concerns for nearly a decade.[126]
Justice Department[edit]
On October 13, 2006, a Justice Department spokesman confirmed that they had opened a preliminary investigation of the official rafting trip taken in 1996 by Kolbe with two 17 year-old former pages.[8]
On October 1, 2006 in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Hastert requested an investigation into Foley's actions, specifically into the explicit IMs that had recently surfaced. Hastert's letter also requested investigation of persons who knew or had possession of these messages but did not report them to the appropriate authorities. That day, the FBI stated that it was assessing whether any federal laws had been violated.[127]
On July 21, 2006, the director of the organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) received copies of the e-mails from one of her staff members, who had received it two days earlier.[21] On that day, CREW turned over the e-mails to the FBI; however, the FBI found insufficient grounds to open a criminal investigation.[47] After the scandal broke, CREW criticized the FBI's lack of action.[21] An anonymous source in the FBI told The Washington Post that CREW was their original source for the e-mails but had provided only heavily redacted copies, even after a request for complete copies, and would not identify their source. The FBI source also alleged that CREW had held the emails since April before turning them over. However, the department spokesman would not comment on the record. CREW's executive director, Melanie Sloan, replied that they had provided unedited e-mails to the FBI, and that her original e-mails to the FBI proved that. She formally requested that the Justice Department's Inspector General investigate the FBI's assertions.[128]
The resulting Inspector General's report concluded that (1) CREW had received the emails in July and turned them over to the FBI within two days; (2) the FBI's decision not to pursue charges against Foley based on the initial emails did not constitute misconduct; but (3) the FBI probably should have referred the case to the House Page Board or other authorities based on what they received.[129]
Responses[edit]
Mark Foley's actions were almost universally condemned. The actions and inactions of Hastert and other members of the Republican House leadership were widely condemned by Democrats and some Republicans. On September 29, 2006, Rep. Pelosi (D-CA) criticized Republican leaders, who, she said, "have known of the egregious behavior of Congressman Mark Foley, yet were prepared to adjourn [Congress] tonight without an Ethics Committee investigation." DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel noted that Alexander had first gone to Reynolds, who was in charge of political operations, and said, "That's to protect a member [of Congress], not to protect a child." When Foley's sexually explicit instant messages became public, a few members of the Republican Party condemned his actions. They voted unanimously with House Democrats to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee for investigation. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert also demanded a criminal investigation by writing the Attorney General asking for a full investigation both into Foley's actions and into the possibility that earlier clues were not properly acted upon by Congressional officials, representatives, the media, and the FBI.[130]
Some members of the gay community voiced concerns over media coverage of the Mark Foley scandal, since the scandal linked homosexuality and pederasty,[131] while others condemn the media's complicity in permitting Foley to remain closeted.[132] Many Republican candidates had announced that they were either returning contributions from Foley's campaign or contributing any Foley money received in the last several years to charity. The NRCC, however, has opted to keep a $100,000 contribution made to it by Foley in July 2006, after the first, "overly friendly" e-mails had become known to House Republican leaders.[133] Carl Forti, an NRCC spokesman, has said the campaign organization would gladly accept the $2.7 million campaign war chest that Foley controlled upon his resignation, should Foley choose to turn it over.[134] On October 5, 2006, the parents of the former page from Louisiana, who initially complained about the e-mails to Rep. Alexander, issued a public statement. They described their son's actions as courageous, and described him as a hero for reporting the e-mails. They supported Alexander, calling his conduct "beyond reproach". They complained about media harassment, and asked to be left alone, requesting respect for their privacy.[135]
Political impact[edit]
Post-scandal polls and commentary[edit]
A Time poll reported that two-thirds of those aware of the scandal believe that the Republican leadership in Congress attempted a cover-up.[136] According to Fox News, an internal Republican poll conducted in the wake of the scandal shows potentially disastrous election results for Congressional Republicans if Hastert remains as Speaker of the House.[137] The unnamed Republican source is quoted as saying "The data suggests Americans have bailed on the speaker, and the difference could be between a 20 seat loss and 50 seat loss." For Democrats to regain control of the House, they had to post a net gain of 15 seats in the 2006 midterm elections.
The National Review, a conservative magazine, called the scandal helpful for Democrats campaigning to regain control of one or both houses of Congress, and said it could have a greater impact than the Jack Abramoff scandals since "a GOP pederasty scandal" is thought to resonate more strongly with the public than one involving the purchase of favors.[138]
On October 3, the Washington Times called for Hastert's resignation as Speaker over his handling of the scandal.[108] Other prominent conservatives called for Hastert's resignation, such as David Bossie, president of Citizens United; conservative columnist Richard Viguerie; and conservative columnist Michael Reagan, a son of former President Ronald Reagan.[139]
A Pew Research Center poll released on October 5 indicated no significant change in registered voters' party support; before and after the scandal broke, Democrats had 51 percent support in the upcoming congressional elections, while Republicans had 38 percent support.[140] In later polls, however, Republicans hemorrhaged support; a USA Today/Gallup survey published October 10 showed Democrats enjoying a 23-point advantage over Republicans, with an 11-point gain for Democrats, and a 12-point loss for Republicans, since a poll released on September 17.[141]
An October 5, 2006 public opinion poll found that 27% of American thought Hastert should remain Speaker, with 43% thinking he should resign from Congress entirely.[142]
On October 6, political scientist and analyst Stuart Rothenberg wrote that the scandal may have helped to "set the stage for a blowout of cosmic proportions next month" in the November elections.[143] University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, on October 5, wrote in the Crystal Ball that "the congressional page scandal [had] joined leaked reports of poor progress in Iraq and Bob Woodward's portrayal of the President Bush as a clueless war wager to deliver Bush and Republicans their worst, most catastrophic week of 2006."[144]
Effect in Foley's district[edit]
In Florida, State Representative Joe Negron was picked to fill Foley's spot in the November elections. The Democratic nominee for the seat was Tim Mahoney. Florida law prohibited Foley's name from being removed from the ballot at the time of his withdrawal from the race, but Republicans hoped that voters would recognize that a vote for Foley would transfer to Negron as a substitute candidate.[145] Nevertheless, Boehner noted that because of the procedures in Florida, "to vote for this candidate, you have to vote for Mark Foley. How many people are going to hold their nose to do that?"[146] Negron used the slogan, "Punch Foley for Joe", having the double meaning of officially voting for Foley in order to really elect Negron as well as evoking images of physically striking the offending member of Congress. Foley's Republican-held seat was regarded as unlikely to change hands before the scandal broke, but CQPolitics changed its rating of the race from Safe Republican – where it had stood since July – to Leans Democratic in early-October.[147] On Election Day, Mahoney won the seat.
Effect in Reynolds's district[edit]
Reynolds, the head of the NRCC, who knew of some Foley e-mails before the scandal became public, released an ad apologizing to his constituents.[148] He was thought to have a safe seat. Shortly before the scandal broke, a SurveyUSA poll found Reynolds' Democratic challenger Jack Davis unexpectedly trailing by only two percentage points (43%-45%),[149] a statistical tie. A subsequent SurveyUSA poll taken a week after the first poll show Davis now leading 50-45,[150] outside of either poll's margin of error. A Zogby telephone poll conducted on October 4–5, after the scandal had been in the news for a week, found Reynolds trailing 33-48.[151] Nevertheless, Reynolds won the race.
Effect on other congressional races[edit]
Within a week of the scandal breaking, five candidates ran campaign ads in reaction to the scandal. Democratic House candidates Patty Wetterling in Minnesota's 6th District, Mary Jo Kilroy in Ohio's 15th, Maxine Moul in Nebraska's 1st district, and Baron Hill in Indiana's 9th came out with ads connecting their opponents to the Republican leadership and, by association, Mark Foley.[152]
Page program[edit]
On October 2, 2006, Representative Ray LaHood (R-IL) called for the page program to be temporarily suspended. He stated that "this is a flawed program. The fact that a member of Congress is sending e-mails to a page and that he can get away with it [shows that] obviously there are problems." Two more Representatives, Jon Porter (R-NV) and Kay Granger (R-TX) also supported LaHood's recommendation to suspend the page program until an outside team could evaluate its security protocol. Hastert announced on October 5, 2006 that he was launching an investigation to evaluate and make improvements to the page program.[153]