Ask Roy Blunt about the Mark Foley scandal

by: Waveflux

The scandal of GOP Rep. Mark Foley and his inappropriate email exchanges with a 16 year old page threatens to expand with an AP news report stating that the Republican House leadership had known of the Foley situation for close to a year - and had apparently done nothing. From Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo highlights the salient passage of the AP piece:

The page worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who said Friday that when he learned of the e-mail exchanges 10 to 11 months ago, he called the teen's parents. Alexander told the Ruston Daily Leader, "We also notified the House leadership that there might be a potential problem," a reference to the House's Republican leaders.

Marshall comments:

So Rep. Alexander knew about this 10 or 11 months ago. And he says he notified the House leadership. That means Hastert and (at the time) either Tom DeLay or Rep. Blunt (R-MO). We don't know it was either of those three men yet. But that's what Alexander means when he says he "notified the House leadership." They're the House leadership.

If I'm understanding this correctly, that means that the leaders of the House Republican caucus have known for almost a year that a member of their caucus was having cybersex with an underage congressional page. And apparently they did nothing about it.

Well, this should be easy enough to determine, assuming that the Republican leaders of the House are forthright enough to answer questions. The constituency of Missouri's Roy Blunt - and the print and electronic press that covers Missouri politics - should ask their representative just what he knew of Mark Foley's predatory activities, and just what he did about it...if anything.

(Contact form for Roy Blunt, including phone and fax)

(More on the Foley scandal from Pam Spaulding. This entry cross-posted at Waveflux.)