Ethics committee quizzes Hastert on Foley timeline

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., spent nearly three hours behind closed doors with the House ethics committee Tuesday, describing what he knew about former Rep. Mark Foley’s relationships with young male pages and when he knew it.

The extraordinary appearance came just a few hours after his Republican campaign chief, Rep. Tom Reynolds, N.Y., went before the committee to reiterate his contention that he personally told Hastert in spring of suspicious e-mails that Foley had sent to a Louisiana teen. Hastert has said he has no recollection of that conversation and did not learn of the Foley matter until it exploded in late September.

“Since I had requested prompt action by the committee, I took the opportunity to thank them for moving expeditiously to look into this matter,” Hastert said as he emerged from the committee’s Capitol basement hearing room. “I answered every question they asked fully and to the best of my ability.”

The twinning of Hastert’s appearance with Reynolds’ appearance surprised House Republican and Democratic leadership aides and only heightened the drama of the committee’s deliberations. Hastert is the first House speaker to testify before the committee since Newt Gingrich discussed a much-criticized book deal in 1997. But in the Gingrich case, committee members scheduled his testimony at night, sparing Gingrich a daylight walk through the throng of reporters and camera crews camped outside the hearing room.

House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, testified last week that he, too, told Hastert in spring of Foley concerns arising from what House leaders have termed “over friendly” e-mails to the former Louisiana page.

Tuesday’s drama was the strongest indication yet that the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the ethics committee is formally known, may be nearing the end of its investigative work. The committee interviewed Hastert’s chief of staff, Scott Palmer, on Monday and could call up his deputy chief of staff, Mike Stokke, and his counsel, Ted Van Der Meid, this week.

But neither Democratic nor Republican leadership aides believe a final report will be released ahead of the Nov. 7 elections that have been roiled by the Foley matter.

The inquiry has been focused on the handling of Foley by House leaders. As far back as 2000, Foley’s advances on former pages through the Internet had come to the attention of one congressman, Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz. Kolbe brought the matter to then-House Clerk Jeff Trandahl, who reported to the speaker’s office.

According to sources close to Trandahl, the former clerk repeatedly brought concerns about Foley to the congressman’s chief of staff, Kirk Fordham. Fordham told the committee that when he was unable to stop Foley’s advances, he asked Palmer to intervene in 2002 or 2003. Palmer has said Fordham’s version of events did not happen.

Aides in the speaker’s office have said the matter did not come to their attention until fall 2005 and were handled without Hastert’s involvement.

Hastert tried Tuesday to deflect attention from GOP leaders, suggesting, as other Republicans have, that Democrats may have known about Foley’s sexually explicit instant messages but did not report them to authorities. Instead, Republicans have said, Democrats shopped them to the media before an election.