WASHINGTON — As pressure mounted on Republicans over their handling of the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, the FBI said Sunday that it had begun a preliminary inquiry to determine whether the disgraced Florida lawmaker had violated federal law by sending sexually explicit instant messages to at least one teenager who had served as a congressional page.
The FBI's brief statement confirming the inquiry came shortly after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) sent a letter to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales asking the Justice Department to examine "Mr. Foley's conduct with current and former House pages to determine to what extent any of his actions violated federal law."
Hastert -- who has been battling accusations that House Republicans inadequately handled concerns that Foley had sent inappropriate though not overtly sexual e-mails last year to another former page -- also asked Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to see whether state laws had been broken.
But the Republicans' effort to distance the party from Foley may be complicated by his close ties with the party's campaign operation.
Foley's longtime chief of staff is now a senior aide to Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), who as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee is leading the effort to maintain the GOP majority in the House. In addition, Foley's campaign committee gave $100,000 to the NRCC this summer, campaign finance records show.
Seizing on the campaign donation, which put Foley among the GOP committee's bigger donors, the Democratic National Committee stepped up its accusations that Reynolds and other Republican leaders were more interested in protecting Foley than investigating potential misconduct.
"Why did Republican congressional leaders choose not to ask the critical questions about the nature and full extent of Congressman Foley's criminal actions involving minors at the time they first learned about it?" Democratic Party Communications Director Karen Finney said Sunday.
Foley, a six-term Republican who was co-chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, resigned his seat Friday after ABC News questioned him about the sexually explicit instant messages he reportedly sent three years ago.
House Republican leaders have been under pressure since then to explain what they knew about Foley's behavior and when they knew it. They acknowledged Saturday that they had known for some time of Foley's "over-friendly" e-mails, sent to a 16-year-old Louisiana boy, but said they had not known of the sexually explicit earlier messages before last week.
