Some Pages Sensed Foley Crossed Line

Disgraced Ex-Congressman Is Target Of FBI E-Mail Probe; Checks In To Rehab

(CBS/AP) 
Hastert, in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asked the Justice Department to "conduct an investigation of Mr. Foley's conduct with current and former House pages."

Democrats are demanding that investigators determine whether Republican leaders tried to cover up Foley's actions for political reasons.

"The attorney general should open a full-scale investigation immediately," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement, including whether GOP leaders "knew there was a problem and ignored it to preserve a congressional seat this election year."

In related developments:

Hastert also wrote Florida Gov. Jeb Bush asking for a state law enforcement investigation into Foley's activities. CBS Radio News correspondent Peter King reports that Gov. Bush's spokeswoman, Alia Faraj, says Bush actually set the wheels in motion over the weekend.

Attorney General Charlie Crist, Florida's GOP candidate for governor, has offered his child protective cyber-team unit. Crist said he is "extremely disappointed and Sad for Mr. Foley's family."

Earlier Monday, Hastert issued his strongest statement yet, saying he
was "outraged and disgusted with Congressman Mark Foley's actions."

Sen. George Allen and Rep. Heather Wilson, two Republicans in tight re-election contests, plan to donate to charities the contributions they received from Foley. The NRCC, which has received $550,000 from Foley since 1996, will keep its money, committee spokesman Carl Forti said. "We will be using the money like every other contribution — to help elect Republicans across the country," Forti said.

FBI cyber-sleuths are looking into the text of some of Foley's messages, checking to see how many e-mails and instant electronic messages were sent and how many computers were used, according to a law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

Ironically, Foley, who is 52 and single, could be found to have violated a law that he helped to write as co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus.

"Republican leaders have admitted to knowing about Mr. Foley's outrageous behavior for six months to a year, and they chose to cover it up rather than to protect these children," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

Rep. Thomas Reynolds of New York, head of the House Republican election effort, said he told Hastert months ago about the allegations involving a 16-year-old boy from Louisiana.

Hastert acknowledged that his staff had been made aware of concerns about what they termed "over-friendly" e-mails Foley had sent to the teenager — including one requesting his picture — in the fall of 2005, and that they referred the matter to the House clerk.

But Hastert said those e-mails were not viewed as "sexual in nature" and that he was not aware of "a different set of communications which were sexually explicit ... which Mr. Foley reportedly sent another former page or pages."

Hastert asked the Justice Department to investigate "anyone who had specific knowledge of the content of any sexually explicit communications between Mr. Foley and any former or current House pages and what actions such individuals took, if any, to provide them to law enforcement."

A Pelosi spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, said that Hastert "seems more concerned by who revealed the Republican leadership cover-up of Mr. Foley's Internet stalking of an underage child than he was about ensuring the children entrusted to the House were protected."

Congressional pages, a staple of Washington politics since the 1820s, are high school students who serve as gofers in the House and Senate.

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©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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