WASHINGTON — Witnesses will begin testimony behind closed doors this week in the sex scandal that has sent shudders through the Republican-controlled Congress and potentially though the upcoming elections.
The investigation, which is being conducted by the House Ethics Committee in an otherwise quiet Capitol, will look into who knew what, and when, about the contacts between then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and male pages.
In what is shaping up as a classic "he said/he said," Kirk Fordham, a former Foley aide, is expected to testify that he warned House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office in 2003 or earlier about Foley's inappropriate interest in teenage pages.
Officials in Hastert's office have said they did not learn about Foley's interest until last fall, when a Louisiana congressman alerted the office to a series of e-mails Foley sent to a former page. Hastert has maintained that his aides then alerted officials in charge of the page program, who told Foley to cease contact with the teenage boy.
"All eyes will be on Hastert, and the basic point of the interviews with staff and GOP leaders will be to find out when the speaker had serious indications something was wrong with Foley," said Julian Zelizer, a specialist in congressional history at Boston University.
Hastert's attorney, J. Randolph Evans, said, "We're going to be fully cooperative."
Also Monday, it became clear that the Foley scandal was sparking political concerns at the highest levels of the White House, with strategist Karl Rove conceding in a private briefing that the matter "complicates things" for some Republican candidates who have been linked to the scandal.
Fordham's attorney, Tim Heaphy, said Monday said that he expects the committee investigation to focus "less on what Congressman Foley did and more on who knew what when."
This week's questioning of witnesses and scrutinizing of records comes as the committee broadens its inquiry to determine whether any other House members have had inappropriate contact with the 16- and 17-year-old congressional pages.
Ethics Committee Chairman Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and the panel's top Democrat, Rep. Howard L. Berman of Valley Village, asked all House members to contact current and former pages sponsored by their offices to determine "whether any of those individuals had any inappropriate communications or interactions with former Rep. Foley or any other member of the House."
