The Foley Scandal Redux - Flopping Aces

MAJOR UPDATE 1320hrs PST

An excellent job done by Wild Bill at Passionate America in discovering who the IM’s were sent to, one (name removed) who appears to have been 18 at the time of the IM’s (turned 18 on Feb 23rd, 2003):

Congrats to the Democrats, they outed cybersex between two consenting adults!

And one other thing, Wild Bill found this out by doing some detective work when ABC accidently left the IM screenname of Jordon. Did ABC News and Brian Ross do the same kind of investigating? You bet your ass they did, that is their job.

The question is, did they know that the guy on the other line of the IM was an adult at the time of the IM’s and then print a lie that it was with a minor?

END UPDATE

The Democratic party is going full tilt in their attempt to get as much as they can from the Foley incident:

The Senate Democratic Campaign Committee (SDCC), headed by Reid, sent an e-mail with the subject line “Heckuva Job!” to supporters Wednesday. The e-mail contained a photo of President Bush, Foley, and former FEMA director Mike Brown during a visit to Florida following a hurricane. Beneath the photo appears the caption: “It’s Time for a New Direction.”

We are learning, as I reported on last night, that big news may be coming out today about a high ranking Democrat having knowledge of the IM’s for months and that Democrats waited until a simultaneous presskreig could be initiated to release the information. (via Polipundit commentor Mad Cow)

FYI, you may have heard this, but Selena Zito with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review (I’m pretty sure that’s right) called in on a local (Birmingham, Alabama) talk radio program this morning. She said a major story might break today that a high ranking Democrat knew about the Foley matter and she hinted there was coordination with ABC, probably through George Stephanopoulos to release the story. (Not taking away from what a disgusting creep Foley is, but considering the reaction by the Dems to the story, this would look pretty bad for them IMO). Zito said she had a few more facts to verify, she does not want to report anything until she’s absolutely certain.

She also said other “outings” would most likely occur before the election and would further hurt the Republicans although she said Democrats would probably be affected as well.

I posted last night about the fact that Dick Morris said on Hannity & Colmes the very same thing, here is the video: (via The Political Pit Bull)

And then we have this by Gateway Pundit:

Radical Gay Rights Activists held on to information about Representative Foley for months and years. These “Rights Activists” knew that representative Foley had relationships with “young men less than half his age.” They did their own investigation on Foley. They even flew in their sources in to be interviewed about the Representative. They shared this information with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. They held on to the information for over a year. They wrote about how they would break the story at midterm elections.

Meanwhile we have the first barrage of Democratic ads using this scandal like this one from Patty Wetterling. Her ad states the following:

“It shocks the conscience. Congressional leaders have admitted to covering up the predatory behavior of a congressman who used the internet to molest children.”

Funny thing is that there is no proof of any sex going on AND these teenagers were not children. Yes, sexual discourse with a 16 year is disgusting but come on, there is a big difference between a 16 year old and a 9 year old. Although the age of consent is 16 in DC, whereas the law states a child is 15 and under, it was still wrong and Foley got what he deserved. But to come up with a shock and awe ad where she deliberately misconstrues the message so that people believe this guy was molesting little kids is unforgivable.

Then she goes on to allege that Republican leaders knew about this “molesting” which is anything but the truth. They knew about the friendly email, the same emails that many MSM outfits decided not to report on because they were just “friendly”, not sexual.

Dean Barnett can see where this is heading:

Once again we get an unhindered view of the Democrats’ campaign philosophy: Offer pure bile, unconstrained by any fidelity to available facts. As has so often been the case in recent history, the last days of a campaign season are revealing the true face of the Democratic Party. It ain’t pretty.

All par for the course and we all should not be surprised by this presskreig. Recall when the left went all ga-ga over the Bush DUI story a few days prior to the 2000 election, the story about unguarded ammo in Iraq a few weeks prior to the 2004 election. Rathergate? The thing is that with this “scandal”, as all the rest of their scandals have, this one will come back to bite them in the ass:

Democrat congressional candidate Mike Arcuri, while serving as district attorney of Oneida County, N.Y., has billed taxpayers for several questionable expenses, including a call to a phone-sex hotline, according to records obtained by HumanEvents.

Mr. Arcuri states that the phone-sex number was dialed accidently but could not explain other spending practices:

The questionable expenditures don’t stop there. Among others were a staff member’s call to a New York City strip club in 2000, applications for admission to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and a gift for the president of a professional association Arcuri belonged to in 2003.

If the Democrats believe they will not get hit by their own sex scandals then they are living in a dream world:

A state senator said he is evaluating whether to continue his bid for a second term after a Charleston television station aired revealing pictures of him last week.

“My family has urged me not to withdraw from the election and I will work with them to make a decision in the immediate future,” State Sen. Randy White, a Webster County Democrat, said in a letter to newspapers in his district.

An apologetic White also wrote that he was “shocked” and “horribly embarrassed” after WCHS-TV aired photos depicting him and at least two other men wearing only body paint.

“The pictures were taken approximately two years ago in private and were stolen from my personal computer,” said White, 51, a married father of three. “I am not sure why they were given to the media, but I must assume for obvious political reasons.”

I guess you reap what you sow.

UPDATE 1050hrs PST

Macranger puts together a good timeline of this scandal:

Through investigation by several bloggers, including yours truly, it is discovered that during the last few years, liberal watchdog group CREW may have had specific knowlede of the IM’s existance, and of Foley’s activities, and might have possibly been in possession corospondence between Rep. Foley and former page(s). Additionally a known “Republican Gay Outer”, Mike Rogers of Blog Active was found to have materially participated in the IM messaging of Foley and admitted to have been on a “campaign” to out Foley since at least as far back as March 2005, and specifically attempted to threaten Foley in January 2006, thus may be guilty of using threat or intimidation to influence a US Congressman’s vote on US legislation.

Yesterday Gateway Pundit uncovered that Mike Rogers had an a “partner” (although not known to be an accomplice at this point) in John Aravios of America’s Blog in a campaign against Foley as well. Gateway Pundit notes that there is no evidence that Aravios actually had specific evidence, but then holding evidence, and having knowledge of someone holding it are still crimes.

World Net Daily picked up on the story here, and puts together nicely what appears at this point to have been an orchestrated effort on the part of several leftwing activists to “pull the trigger” on this story just prior to midterm elections.

Additionally, while Mr. Foley appears by his resigning to have admitted to participating in IMing and emailing former pages, it’s not clear if all the recorded IM’s are authentic. The FBI, which is looking into the matter, as I mentioned here, will use specific forensic analysist to determine if in fact the corospondence discovered so far is in fact valid. Already it has been discovered that several IM’s may have in fact been tampered with.

And now we have a bit more info on the owner of AMERICABlog: (via QandO blog)

Somebody should definitely ask why people who heard about this months ago did not report it:

“I received copies of these emails several months ago, but couldn’t confirm their veracity so I did not report on them.” — John Aravosis, Americablog

Did Aravosis turn this over to the FBI or local law enforcement?
Plus Sweetness & Light has come up with this information from a two year old article about Rogers and Aravosis:

Mike Rogers and John Aravosis, [are] the two men loosely heading an ongoing outing campaign on the Hill. As the date nears for a Senate vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would ban gay marriages in the Constitution, Rogers said the outings have picked up steam — from 13 documented offices to nearly 20 currently on a target list provided by Rogers to the Blade.

In addition to Tolman, Rogers and Aravosis, working in tandem but not together, claimed in the last week to have outed via the Web Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Republican Congressman Mark Foley of Florida…

[…]Aravosis said he obtained the latest information about the five-term congressman from Foley’s former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham.

Fordham, who is gay, headed up fund-raising efforts for Foley’s aborted Senate campaign and is now the finance director for one of the remaining GOP primary candidates in that race: Mel Martinez, George W. Bush’s former Housing & Urban Development secretary. Martinez has come out in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Fordham denied ever speaking with Aravosis and told the Blade, “I just don’t discuss Congressman Foley’s personal life with reporters, but I’m not sure what their motive is in outing him, other than to draw attention to themselves. Foley has a good track record with gay issues and opposes the FMA.” …

A question from Gateway Pundit:

QUESTION – Did Fordham have acccess to Foley’s IM account information, screen name and password? Very likely. Could he have passed this information onto Aravosis and Rogers? Very possible. Could some of the IMs been manufactured then by Rogers or Aravosis, those being reported by ABC. Probable.

We know someone logged onto Foley’s IM account yesterday when he was in a treatment center for 20-30 seconds, according to Fox News. Could this have been Rogers or Aravosis?

UPDATE II 1115hrs PST

Fordham has resigned:

The chief of staff for Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, Kirk Fordham, resigned after questions were raised about his role in the handling of the congressional page scandal, according to Republican sources on Capitol Hill.

Those sources said Fordham, a former chief of staff for Congressman Mark Foley, had urged Republican leaders last spring not to raise questionable Foley e-mails with the full Congressional Page Board, made up of two Republicans and a Democrat.

“He begged them not to tell the page board,” said one of the Republican sources.

People familiar with Fordham’s side of the story, however, said Fordham was being used as a scapegoat by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

They said Fordham had repeatedly warned Hastert’s staff about Foley’s “problem” with pages, but little was done.

UPDATE III 1125hrs PST

Interesting that Rogers site, BlogActive, predicted the outing of Foley for the midterms back in 2005:

I’ve thought hard about what kind of TAKE ACTION would work, but there is really is none right now. Everyone already knows Foley’s a self hating closet case. When we get closer to the mid-term elections, I am sure more will surface.

And this is something I missed earlier from David Corn alleging that there is a list of Republican aides who are gay:

There’s a list going around. Those disseminating it call it “The List.” It’s a roster of top-level Republican congressional aides who are gay.

On CBS News on Tuesday, correspondent Gloria Borger reported that there’s anger among House Republicans at what an unidentified House GOPer called a “network of gay staffers and gay members who protect each other and did the Speaker a disservice.” The implication is that these gay Republicans somehow helped page-pursuing Mark Foley before his ugly (and possibly illegal) conduct was exposed. The List–drawn up by gay politicos–is a partial accounting of who on Capitol Hill might be in that network.

I have a copy. I’m not going to publish it. For one, I don’t know for a fact that the men on the list are gay. And generally I don’t fancy outing people–though I have not objected when others have outed gay Republicans, who, after all, work for a party that tries to limit the rights of gays and lesbians and that welcomes the support of those who demonize same-sexers.

What’s interesting about The List–which includes nine chiefs of staffs, two press secretaries, and two directors of communications–is that (if it’s acucurate) it shows that some of the religious right’s favorite representatives and senators have gay staffers helping them advance their political careers and agendas. These include Representative Katherine Harris and Henry Hyde and Senators Bill Frist, George Allen, Mitch McConnell and Rick Santorum. Should we salute these legislators for being open-minded enough to have such tolerant hiring practices? After all, Santorum in a 2003 AP interview compared homosexuality to bestiality, incest and polygamy. It would be rather big of Santorum to employ a fellow who engages in activity akin to such horrors. That is, if Santorum knows about his orientation.

It’s becoming clearer by the day that this scandal is a coordinated presskreig by gay activists against closeted gays in the Republican party. That’s it in a nutshell.

Did it work with Mary Cheney?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

Allah at Hot Air reminds us that David Corn is the famous Plamegate pusher and:

To be clear: Corn said the list had been drawn up by “gay politicos” without specifying their party, but he also said that House Republicans were angry at the gay staffers. I took that as a suggestion that Republicans were helping to circulate the list in hopes of having these people purged. Maybe — hopefully — I misread.

UPDATE IV 1135hrs PST

Fordham has issued a statement:

I have resigned today from Congressman Tom Reynolds’ office. It is clear the Democrats are intent on making me a political issue in my boss’s race, and I will not let them do so.

I want to clarify a few things: When I sought to help Congressman Foley and his family when his shocking secrets were being revealed, I did so as a friend of my former boss, not as Congressman Reynolds’ Chief of Staff. I reached out to the Foley family, as any good friend would, because I was worried about their emotional well-being.

At the same time, I want it to be perfectly clear that I never attempted to prevent any inquiries or investigation of Foley’s conduct by House officials or any other authorities.

Like so many, I feel betrayed by Mark Foley’s indefensible behavior. Again, I will not allow the Democrats to make me a political issue in my boss’s race, and I will fully cooperate with the ongoing investigation.”

Sounds to me like Fordham has a bit of information he wants to spill, and I doubt the Democrats will be happy.

UPDATE V 1215hrs PST