Fallout From the Foley Affair

Oct. 2, 2006 — -- As Republicans try to calculate the political damage the party could suffer from the sexual scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley and congressional pages, the White House has said, in effect, everyone should chill out and make sure of the facts.

Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America," White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said a lot of people -- presumably he was referring to Democrats -- were "trying to figure out, 'OK, can I get political advantage out of this?'"

Snow said, "Let's take it one step at a time. There will always be time for people to call for investigations and so on. Frankly, I think we just need to get to the facts."

The president's spokesman acknowledged that "it's a terrible story, and I think people deserve to figure out what went on."

Republicans are among those calling for a sweeping look into how their leaders handled the Foley affair after they learned that he had sent what they call "over-friendly" e-mails to a 16-year-old boy from Louisiana.

New York Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who is leading his party's re-election effort in the House, said he told House Speaker Denis Hastert months ago about the e-mails.

Hastert said that he did not regard those e-mails as "sexual in nature," and that he did not realize there were others, "which were sexually explicit."

He has asked the Justice Department to investigate "Mr. Foley's conduct with current and former House pages."

Hastert said he and other GOP leaders had asked the House Page Board to undertake a full review of the incident and propose additional safeguard measures.

The Republican leadership is also creating a toll-free telephone number for House pages, parents, grandparents and staff to confidentially report incidents of concern.

At an afternoon news conference today, Hastert said he was "disgusted" with Foley, and called the allegations vile and repulsive.

He also added that top Republican officials had not been aware of the allegations against Foley.

"No GOP leader knew about it till last Friday" when the allegations surfaced, he said.

Had they known, Hastert said they would have pressed for "expulsion."