Foley's Reputed Visit to the Page Dormitory

Nor was McCain even the only Arizona Republican congressman to add fuel to the fire Tuesday. Tuesday morning Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., elucidated a previous report from the Washington Post about an incident Kolbe was told about that involved a former page receiving inappropriate e-mails from Foley.

A Different Account of the Story

"Some time after leaving the page program, an individual I had appointed as a page contacted my office to say he had received e-mails from Rep. Foley that made him uncomfortable," Kolbe said in a statement. Contrary to the Washington Post story, Kolbe said he "was not shown the content of the messages and was not told they were sexually explicit," nor did he "have a personal conversation with Mr. Foley about the matter." Kolbe said he instructed his staff to report this complaint to the clerk of the House, who "supervised the page program. This was done promptly."

"I assume e-mail contact ceased, since the former page never raised the issue again with my office. I believed then, and believe now, that this was the appropriate way to handle this incident, given the information I had and the fact that the young man was no longer a page and not subject to the jurisdiction of the program."

Hastert said that Kolbe "was on the page board" and it was his job to report such an incident. "I don't know anything more about it," he said.

Hastert spent some of the day Tuesday meeting with evangelical leader K.A. Paul, founder of the Global Peace Initiative, who prayed with the speaker at Hastert's Plano, Illinois, home. Paul said he had hoped to convince the speaker to step down, since the Foley scandal had become such a distraction.