FBI opens probe on Foley e-mails

Democrats continue to denounce Reynolds

2 Oct 2006 // WASHINGTON -- The FBI said Sunday it had opened a preliminary investigation into the sexually explicit computer messages that then-Rep. Mark Foley sent to former congressional pages.
At the same time, Democrats continued to hammer Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence, for what they saw as close connections between him and the disgraced Republican congressman from Florida.

Foley's downfall stems from two sets of computer messages that Foley sent to former pages, teenagers who act as aides in the House. Reynolds says he had never seen any of the messages before the scandal broke open last week.

One set involves unusually friendly e-mails Foley sent late last summer to a former House page from Louisiana, which Reynolds said he heard about from another congressman in the spring.

The second set sexually explicit instant messages that Foley sent to another former House page in 2003 prompted the FBI investigation. Reynolds said he found out about the instant messages when ABC News revealed them on Friday.

But Democratic Party officials in both New York and Washington said Reynolds should have gone to police when a colleague told him about the worrisome e-mails to the former page from Louisiana.

And on Sunday, the New York Democratic State Committee charged that campaign money may have been the reason why Reynolds didn't act more boldly. The committee noted that Foley gave a Republican campaign committee headed by Reynolds $100,000 in July well after Reynolds went to House Speaker Dennis Hastert rather than police, about the matter.

"Parents and voters throughout America are worried and sickened by the fact that Mr. Reynolds knew about these inappropriate e-mails from a colleague to a minor - and then swept them under the carpet," Democratic spokesman Blake Zeff said. "It now appears Mr. Reynolds had a hundred thousand reasons for his coverup."

In response, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which Reynolds heads, dismissed the Democratic charges as partisan rhetoric. The spokesman noted that 126 of the 232 Republican members of the House had given the committee at least $100,000 this year.

"This is standard operating procedure in Washington to give donations to the party committee," said the spokesman, Carl Forti.

Meanwhile, a newly formed Democratic group called "Mothers Against Congressional Corruption" eight protesters gathered at Reynolds' district office in Amherst called for Reynolds' resignation.

"It is unacceptable that the chairman of the House Republican campaign organization engaged in a coverup of this magnitude," said Bonnie Higgins of North Tonawanda, a spokesman for the group. "Children should be protected, and that's why we are asking for his resignation immediately."

Democratic sources also noted that Reynolds' current chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, previously served in the same job for Foley for 10 years.

In fact, the Palm Beach Post reported Saturday that Fordham had "returned to Foley's side to advise him" in recent days.

Fordham would be unavailable for further comment, said a spokesman for Reynolds, L.D. Platt.

Platt also refused to respond to questions about whether Reynolds and Fordham had talked about Foley when Reynolds first heard of the e-mails to the Louisiana boy last spring.

The back-and-forth over Reynold's role came as the FBI said it had begun a preliminary investigation into Foley's computerized contacts with teenage boys.

The agency is "conducting an assessment to see if there's been a violation of federal law," said FBI spokesman Richard Kolko, who declined further comment.

That should have happened months ago, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which identifies itself as a progressive legal watchdog group.

Sloan said she became aware of the e-mail to the former page from Louisiana over the summer, when a source in Washington informed the organization about it. She said she immediately referred the matter to the FBI.

"Somebody ought to be asking the FBI: what did they do?" she said.

Earlier Sunday, the White House and Hastert joined top Democrats in calling for a criminal investigation of instant messages Foley sent to former House pages in 2003 including one that included the question: "Do I make you a little horny?"

No evidence has surfaced that Reynolds or any other Republican House leader knew of those salacious instant messages before ABC revealed them on Friday, prompting Foley's immediate resignation.

Nevertheless, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote to the House Ethics Committee on Sunday, demanding a quick investigation into Foley's conduct and the Republican leadership's response to it.

"Republican leaders have admitted to knowing about Mr. Foley's outrageous behavior for six months to a year, and they chose to cover it up rather than to protect these children," Pelosi wrote.

Also on Sunday, the New York State Democratic Committee issued a press release headlined: "Reynolds group received $100K from pedophile while he was covering for him."

Asked to explain the use of the term "pedophile," Zeff said: "I was using that based on the instant messages" that Reynolds never saw.

But Zeff noted that Reynolds said Saturday that Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., told him in the spring that the page "had some discomfort" with e-mails he received from Foley.

Zeff charged that "discomfort" alone should have prompted Reynolds to respond more aggressively.

"Does anyone believe that Tom Reynolds would have been so cavalier and unconcerned about these e-mails if they were sent to a minor he knew personally?" Zeff asked.

In response, Forti, the Reynolds campaign committee aide, noted that several news organizations had known about Foley's e-mails to the Louisiana teen for a year and did not find them newsworthy.

In fact, in a weekend editor's note, the St. Petersburg Times termed the e-mails "friendly chit chat" and noted that they were not at all like the "overly sexual" instant messages from 2003 to another former page that ABC revealed on Friday.

While most of the sniping over the Foley issue came across party lines, the weekend's events also revealed an apparent rift between Hastert, the top House Republican, and Reynolds, a longtime Hastert ally who has long been seen as a possible eventual successor to the speaker.

The statement that Reynolds issued Saturday contradicted an earlier Hastert account indicating that the speaker had only heard about the Foley matter last week.

And sources close to Reynolds Sunday said that a statement issued by the speaker a day earlier included a glaring inaccuracy. While the Hastert statement said Reynolds told the speaker that the clerk of the House and the head of the House Page Board had investigated Foley's e-mails to the Louisiana boy, Reynolds' aides contended that never happened.

Asked why Reynolds had chosen to publicly disagree with Hastert, a source close to Reynolds said: "Tom Reynolds did all the right things, and we needed to say that."

Now it will apparently be up to the FBI to determine who did the right things and who did not.

In a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Sunday, Hastert asked that the Justice Department investigate not only Foley's actions, but also "who had specific knowledge of the content of any sexually explicit communications between Mr. Foley and any former or current House pages and what actions such individuals took, if any, to provide them to law enforcement."