GOP knew of Foley's emails

GOP leaders knew of Foley e-mail in '05 - Yahoo! News GOP leaders knew of Foley e-mail in '05 Sun Oct 1, 8:00 AM ET GOP leaders admit their offices have known for months that a Florida Republican congressman was sending inappropriate e-mails to a boy who had worked as a page in the House of Representatives. The office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who earlier said he'd learned about the e-mails only last week, acknowledged that aides referred the matter to the authorities last fall. They said they were only told the messages were "over-friendly." Rep. Thomas Reynolds (news, bio, voting record), who heads the House Republican election effort, said Saturday he told Hastert months ago about concerns that a fellow Republican lawmaker, Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record), had sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy. Reynolds, a Republican from New York, is defending himself from Democrats who say he did too little to protect the boy. Foley quit Congress on Friday after ABC News questioned him about the e-mails to a former congressional page and about sexually suggestive instant messages to other pages. "The improper communications between Congressman Mark Foley and former House Congressional pages is unacceptable and abhorrent. It is an obscene breach of trust," Hastert, R-Ill., Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Saturday in a written statement. The Republican leaders said it is their duty to ensure House pages are safe. They said they are creating a toll-free hot line for pages and their families to call to confidentially report any incidents, and will consider adopting new rules on communications between lawmakers and pages. The boy who received the e-mails was 16 in the summer of 2005 when he worked in Congress as a page. After the boy returned to his Louisiana home, the congressman e-mailed him. The teenager thought the messages were inappropriate, particularly one in which Foley asked the teen to send a picture of himself. I wonder what's the moral values crowd at on this one? A Republican congressman was sending XXX rated emails to a 16 year old boy and the Republicans knew for a year. Could you image if this was Harry Reid or Howard Dean was caught writing freaky emails to a underage dude the right wing media will be foaming at the mouth.