J Dennis Hastert

If there was an Olympic competition in closing ranks, surely the Republican Party would take the gold. Prominent conservatives and House Republican leaders tumbled over one another early last week to complain about the way House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) handled the sex scandal that forced the abrupt resignation of Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.).

When a complaint about Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate interest in a teenage former page was brought to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office last year, it ended up on the desks of two of the Illinois Republican's most trusted lieutenants. The two men -- Hastert's chief political advisor and his senior legal counsel -- along with Hastert's longtime chief of staff, are the speaker's go-to team to resolve problems.

The House Ethics Committee on Thursday opened an investigation into the scandal surrounding the congressional page system, a furor that has ended the political career of one lawmaker and jeopardized the leadership position of Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Hastert, at a news conference in his home district, rejected calls that he resign as speaker in the face of criticism that his office reacted too slowly to the problem.

In explaining how he responded to early warnings of possible sexual misconduct by Rep. Mark Foley, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has suggested that the "over-friendly" e-mails Foley sent to a former page were not explicit enough to alert him to the seriousness of the problem.

A senior Republican congressional aide said Wednesday that he warned House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office more than two years ago about "inappropriate behavior" by Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) toward Capitol Hill pages. That would mean the speaker's office learned about Foley's conduct at least a year earlier than Hastert, an Illinois Republican, has acknowledged.

Responding to the scandal over former Rep. Mark Foley's suggestive messages to teenage boys, the editorial board of the Washington Times called for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert to step down. "House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing and resign his speakership at once," said the lead editorial posted Monday night on the Times' website. The Times, one of the most reliably conservative voices in the nation's capital, criticized Hastert (R-Ill.

About 400 supporters of broader immigrant rights streamed out of Chinatown Square at noon Friday to kick off a four-day journey that will end at the district office of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert in Batavia. The activists carried a message on T-shirts and placards: Immigrants' interests matter.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said Sunday he might challenge a judge's order allowing FBI agents to examine documents seized at a Louisiana congressman's Capitol Hill office in a bribery probe. He said he believed that Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) was "in big trouble" and that the House would not be joining in support of him. But, he said, the House separately might seek to make clear its position that the Justice Department cannot randomly and wantonly search lawmakers' offices.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert was hospitalized for treatment of a bacterial skin infection. Hastert (R-Ill.), 64, was expected to be treated with intravenous antibiotics at Bethesda Naval Hospital through the weekend, according to his spokesman Ron Bonjean.

With Republicans angrily splintered and facing a perilous fall election, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert will make a little history today as he becomes the longest-serving Republican speaker. Hastert, with nearly 7 1/2 years in the leadership post, will oust another Illinoisan from the record books: former Rep. Joseph Cannon, whose seven-year, five-month tenure ended in 1911.