"I hereby resign as the representative of the 16th Congressional District of Florida, effective today." Mark Foley's one-sentence statement faxed to Gov. Jeb Bush at 3:41 p.m, September 29, 2006.
 | Speaker Hastert Letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, October 1, 2006, (Washington, D.C.) Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) today sent the following letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: Dear Mr. Attorney General: |
As Speaker of the House, I hereby request that the Department of Justice conduct an investigation of Mr. Foley’s conduct with current and former House pages to determine to what extent any of his actions violated federal law.
 | This United States Congress image is in the public domain. This may be because it is an official Congressional portrait, because it was taken by an official employee of the Congress, or because it has been released into the public domain and posted on the official websites of a member of Congress. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain. This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. The description on its description page there is shown below |
According to an Editor’s Note that appeared on the St. Petersburg Times’ website yesterday, the Times was given a set of emails from Mr. Foley to Representative Alexander’s former page in November of 2005. (See “A Note From the Editors” located at blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/, visited on September 30, 2006). The editors state that they viewed this exchange as “friendly chit chat” and decided not to publish it after hearing an explanation from Representative Foley. Acting on this same communication, the Chairman of the House Page Board and the then Clerk of the House confronted Mr. Foley, demanded he cease all contact with the former page as his parents had requested, and believed they had privately resolved the situation as the parents had requested.
Unlike the first communication, the second communication was a set of instant messages that contained sexually explicit statements and were reportedly generated three years ago. Last week, ABC News first reported these sexually explicit instant messages which led to Representative Foley’s resignation. These sexually explicit communications warrant a criminal referral in two respects. Initially, since the communications involve interstate communications, there should be a complete investigation and prosecution of any federal laws that have been violated. In addition, since the communications appear to have existed for three years, there should be an investigation into the extent there are persons who knew or had possession of these messages but did not report them to the appropriate authorities. It is important to know who may have had the communications and why they were not given to prosecutors before now.
Therefore, I also request that the Department undertake an investigation into 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. I request that the scope of your investigation include any and all individuals who may have been aware of this matter—be they Members of Congress, employees of the House of Representatives, or anyone outside the Congress.
| [10:20 P.M. - MOTION TO REFER PRIVILEGED RESOLUTION - Mr. Boehner moved to refer the privileged resolution to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and the Chair recognized Mr. Boehner under the one-hour rule. Subsequently, Mr. Boehner moved the previous question on the motion to refer and by voice vote, |
PRIVILEGED RESOLUTION SUBMITTED - Ms. Pelosi rose to a point of personal privilege and sent to the desk a privileged resolution.
10:40 P.M. - on ordering the previous question on the motion to refer the resolution Agreed to by recorded vote: 410 - 0 (Roll no. 513).]
Your attention to this serious matter is appreciated. I am also sending to the Department of Law Enforcement for the State of Florida a request to investigate whether or not any state laws were violated by Mr. Foley or anyone else with respect to this matter
Sincerely, J. Dennis Hastert, Speaker
A FEW Relevant Bills sponsored by Congressman Mark Foley
- Child Modeling Exploitation Prevention Act (Introduced in House)[H.R.1142.IH]
- Child Fingerprints Safekeeping Act of 2006 (Introduced in House)[H.R.5773.IH]
- Child Predator Act of 2005 (Introduced in House)[H.R.1355.IH]
- Protecting Our Children from Violence Act of 2005 (Introduced in House)[H.R.1223.IH]
- Letter Faxed to WPBF-TV in West Palm Beach By David Roth, Foley's attorney, on "need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and related behavioral problems"
- Joint Statement from Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner and Majority Whip Roy Blunt on the Congressman Mark Foley Matter September 30, 2006
- Speaker Hastert Letter to Florida Governor Jeb Bush
- INTERNAL REVIEW OF CONTACTS WITH THE OFFICE OF THE SPEAKER REGARDING THE CONGRESSMAN MARK FOLEY MATTER
- Congressman Foley's MySpace profile
- OFFICES OF THE SIXTEENTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
- Project Safe Childhood, In his one-year anniversary speech, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales stressed the Department's commitment to protecting America's children from online sexual exploitation crimes by announcing Project Safe Childhood. This nationwide initiative, involving efforts by federal, state, and local law enforcement officials, formally began on May 17, 2006. The new Project Safe Childhood web site provides information to our community partners that will help protect our children from online exploitation and abuse. View Project Safe Childhood site
RELATED: Keywords, Alberto R. Gonzales, Friday, August 18, 2006 Statement on the Terrorist Surveillance Program, Thursday, August 17, 2006 ACLU v. NSA, FULL TEXT, Thursday, August 10, 2006 Chertoff, Gonzales, United Kingdom, liquid explosives (VIDEO), Friday, June 23, 2006 Seven Florida Men Charged with Conspiring to Support al Qaeda (VIDEO), Thursday, April 27, 2006 Operation Falcon II (VIDEO), Thursday, January 26, 2006 Gonzales to Lead U.S. Delegation to Honduras Inauguration, Wednesday, January 04, 2006 Jack Abramoff Press Release and VIDEO, Wednesday, November 23, 2005 Attorney General Gonzales on Jose Padilla (VIDEO), Wednesday, July 06, 2005 ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES TRAVELS TO BAGHDAD, Sunday, April 24, 2005 DRAM CONSPIRACY, Monday, April 18, 2005 Operation FALCON, Friday, March 11, 2005 ALBERTO R. GONZALES ON THE AL-MOAYAD AND ZAYED CONVICTIONS, Friday, February 25, 2005 Alberto R. Gonzales priorities of Justice, Friday, February 04, 2005 Confirmation Alberto R. Gonzales Attorney General, Wednesday, January 05, 2005 Judiciary Committee Alberto R. Gonzales, Wednesday, November 10, 2004 The Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales,
2 comments:
What Foley did is embarassing to his party, but he apparently did not commit a crime.
Teenagers are not children. The law says as much in almost all countries where age of consent is typically 14-16. The indidividual states as well have lower ages of consent than the federal govt uses to define a “minor” for internet/telephone contact. Even in DC, age of consent is 16.
In fact Foley did not commit a crime, because the age of consent in the jurisdiction is 16. Federal solicitation charges depend on the laws of the jurisdiction. There's no indication that he offered to pay for sex. Sexual harassment is also an unlikely charge because the page in question was not in his employ.
Ya know what's kind of amazing? The above comment is a cut-and-paste, and appears in at least a dozen other 'blogs addressing this issue.
Here's a google search that shows it.
Talk about getting your message across!
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