Clearly, the House Republicans have decided that Speaker Denny Hastert must resign. Will Hastert let the other House Republican members use him as their scapegoat, so then when he resigns the "problem" will be gone and the other members can no longer be blamed?
That would be absurb, as there is plenty of blame to be shared:
- Congressman Tom Reynolds' office had a direct role in covering up this scandal. (More below)
- Congressman John Shimkus was the one who took the predator's word for it, and who didn't tell the Democrat or the other Republican on the Page Board about the scandal.
- Congressman Rodney Alexander, who claims neither his staff nor the leadership ever told him that a page who was his own constituent was sexually harassed by a member of Congress, thinks the House GOP leadership handled this scandal just swell. He just told CNN that simply telling the predator to stop was sufficient.
- Congress John Boehner knew about the emails, knew that the decision was made to let Foley stay in their leadership, let him stay as chair of the missing and exploited children caucus, and did nothing.
- And finally, every single member of Congress needs to answer the question as to whether they were the only people on the Hill who didn't know of Foley's youthful indiscretions. It seems it wasn't that a big secret. The pages were warned about Foley in 2001. So who knew about Foley and did nothing to stop him?
Now back to Reynolds: The mainstream media has now picked up on the fact that Congressman Tom Reynolds (R-NY) is linked to alleged child sex predator Mark Foley through his chief of staff, Kirk Fordham. Here's today's LA Times:
Another former staffer said it was an oft-repeated story around Capitol Hill that Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, would sometimes accompany the congressman to keep him out of trouble.
Fordham represents a link between Foley and House GOP leaders. Shortly after leaving Foley's office last year, he became chief of staff to Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Reynolds has said he was told this spring about the e-mails that sparked the initial complaint about Foley.
Fordham has not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Times.
If this allegation is true, then Reynolds' chief of staff knew that Foley had issues. But we're to believe that the chief of staff didn't mention this to his boss, Reynolds, when the Foley emails came to light months ago? What's more, Reynolds sent his chief of staff to "advise" Foley last week before the predator resigned. (Reynolds' chief of staff tried to broker a deal with ABC News last Friday in order to get ABC to cover-up the worst of the evidence against Foley.)
Last night, Reynolds put together a press conference about the Foley/GOP child predator scandal:
Flanked by about 30 children of supporters and as many parents, Reynolds defended his actions at a news conference late Monday in Amherst.
The congressman said that like anyone who hears a complaint about a co-worker, he alerted his supervisor, in this case Hastert.
"I don't think I went wrong at all," said Reynolds. "I don't know what else I could have done. What's a good citizen to do?"
Reynolds dismissed the suggestion that the National Republican Campaign Committee give up or donate the $100,000 it received from Foley in July, saying Foley raised the money in an honorable fashion.
At least two prominent GOP senators — George Allen of Virginia and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina — said they plan to give donations they received from Foley to charity.
When a reporter suggested to Reynolds that the children step outside in order to have a frank discussion of the sexually charged case, Reynolds declined.
"It's astounding to me as a parent or a grandparent that anyone would insinuate that I would seek to cover up inappropriate conduct between an adult and a child," Reynolds said.
You sent your chief of staff for two days last week to help advise a child sex predator. Your chief of staff then tried to get ABC to cover-up the most damning information in this entire case. What more could you have done? You must be joking. This gentleman is still your chief of staff, so you obviously have no problem with what he did in this case, and likely you gave him permission, or sent him, to help Foley. After all, it's not like you didn't notice that your chief of staff disappeared for two works days and then was talking to the media as Foley's representative. Yeah, no conflict there.
Why won't Tom Reynolds explain why he sent his chief of staff to help a sex predator cover-up the evidence? No one has reported on this story yet. Come on media, it's a freebie!
- Complied from AmericaBlog submissions
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