Over the last week, one of the problems for House Republicans was that the Mark [tag]Foley[/tag] scandal was unfolding slowly. New details emerged, bit by bit, with every new revelation exacerbating an already scandalous situation. It’s why crisis management dictates getting all the bad news out at once; it’s preferable to slowly bleeding to death.
Yesterday was the first day in eight in which no new damaging details emerged, and it led more than a few Republicans to believe they had filed turned the corner. One senior Republican official told the New York Times, “I’m hoping this is gone.” The same official, the NYT reported, “cautioned that new disclosures could quickly imperil Mr. Hastert.”
House Speaker J. Dennis [tag]Hastert[/tag]’s chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member with personal knowledge of Foley and his behavior with pages said yesterday.
The staff member said Hastert’s chief of staff, Scott Palmer, met with the Florida Republican at the Capitol to discuss complaints about Foley’s behavior toward pages. The alleged meeting occurred long before Hastert says aides in his office dispatched Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.) and the clerk of the House in November 2005 to confront Foley about troubling e-mails he had sent to a Louisiana boy.
The staff member’s account buttresses the position of Foley’s onetime chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who said earlier this week that he had appealed to Palmer in 2003 or earlier to intervene, after Fordham’s own efforts to stop Foley’s behavior had failed. Fordham said Foley and Palmer, one of the most powerful figures in the House of Representatives, met within days to discuss the allegations.
Palmer said this week that the meeting Fordham described “did not happen.” Timothy J. Heaphy, Fordham’s attorney, said yesterday that Fordham is prepared to testify under oath that he had arranged the meeting and that both Foley and Palmer told him the meeting had taken place.
Hastert’s line — that he first learned of Foley’s “problem” in 2005 — is getting shakier all the time.
Of course, in the short term, Palmer, one of the most powerful aides on the Hill, is in a very tough spot right now. He denied having been told about Foley’s interest in minors in 2003, and now we have two sources saying he knew. Palmer also denied confronting Foley directly, and the two sources have said Palmer is wrong about that, too.
Updates about the House clerk, who helped confront Foley in 2005, don’t help either.
[Former House Clerk Jeff Trandahl’s] departure came within days of his confrontation with Foley over e-mails that the congressman had sent a former page. House aides say the circumstances of Trandahl’s exit were oddly quiet. The departure of a staff member of long standing, especially one as important as the House clerk, is usually marked with considerable fanfare, said Scott Lilly, a former Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. Debate is suspended in mid-afternoon to accommodate a stream of testimonials from lawmakers. […]
“My one-hour Special Order changed to a five-minute Special Order, now to a one-minute,” Shimkus said. “I just want to say thank you for the work you have done.”
Lilly said: “He seemed to suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke.”
“New disclosures could quickly imperil Mr. Hastert”? As Josh Marshall put it, “I guess that’s what next week is for.”