What xxxactly did Tom Reynolds know about Mark Foley and what did he do about it?
Mark Foley (ex R-FL) resigned from Congress today as news of inappropriate sexual exchanges with an underage congressional page surfaced. Americablog has the actual text. Not for the faint of heart to be sure.
Well - Besides the fact that Mark Foley is a pig. Oh, Did I mention he was the chairman of the house caucus on missing and exploited children and pursued tough laws against those who use the Internet for sexual exploitation of children?
It appears that the House leadership was notified of these activities. Almost a year ago!
Then there was this little gem
Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who sponsored the page from his district, told reporters that he learned of the e-mails from a reporter some months ago and passed on the information to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Republican campaign organization.
Alexander said he did not pursue the matter further because “his parents said they didn’t want me to do anything.”
Carl Forti, a spokesman for the GOP campaign organization, said Reynolds learned from Alexander that the parents did not want to pursue the matter. Forti said, however, that the matter did go before the House Page Board — the three lawmakers and two House officials who oversee the pages.
It was unclear what the officials did.
Well Tom what did you do? I’m guessing nothing.
Reread the passage again. “…but [the parents] didn’t want me to do anything.” So a long term Congressman who is using his power to prey on a kid gets a pass from the parents? How is this a discussion about the parents anyway? Aren’t there laws against this stuff? Moral and legal? How about the House leadership not using the parents as an excuse to keep Foley in place.
I’m just speculating here but with the parents not suing, the Republicans get to circle the wagons and hope this goes away.
Tom - consider this an open invite to tell your side of the story on rochesterturning.com. I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation why the House leadership of which apparently you are a part of did nothing.
dailykos and Americablog are all over the Foley story.
Well said.
Damn, you beat me to it! I was going to start out “strip down, get relaxed, and get ready for a story that could seriously alter the race for NY-26.”
I don’t blame Alexander — I do blame Reynolds and Hastert. This is a situation Republican Congressional leadership should have dealt with.
[...] (Looks like it just got tighter) [...]
If Davis doesn’t jump all over this issue, stick a fork in him . . .
“For an entire year, Tom Reynolds knew that one of his Republican colleagues was a sexual predator and did nothing. Can you trust him with YOUR child’s future?”
[...] when Mark Foley was chasing after the under age Pages? Mark Foley was IM ing Pages, the Republican House leadership knew about it up to a year prior? Money exchanging between [...]