Congressman Foley resigned

[International Machine Consortium]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: Fern
would one get a copy of a text message? Can someone please explain the technical part of this?

The conversations are from AOL instant messaging. Presumably the chat application being used stores a copy of conversations in the program log files. Presumably someone has gained access to Foley's laptop and retrieved the conversations. It would have to be a laptop, because the instant messages being circulated which were apparently made from out of state. I don't think the instant messages could come from the young man himself or his family, as apparently they didn't want to make an issue of it and didn't provide full copies of the conversations when they complained (they just said Foley was being too "friendly" and they wanted the contact to stop).

Thank you for the info. :beer:

I'm thinking the IM's are from a different young man than the one who did complain. But I could be wrong.

If true that these messages were retrieved from Foley's laptop then there are other problems evident here; national security concerns, and the violation of Foley's right to privacy (if, and I don't know as legal commentators seem divided on the issue, these IMs are somehow illegal and thus no expectation to a right to privacy exists seems a court warrent would be required. I assume that is not the case as these IMs apparently went straight to the press). Why is no one discussing these other issues?

Fern

Because those issues don't exist. It's public domain stuff because the boys probably released it. They can elect to do that you know. They actually have rights too. Shocking, I know. :disgust:

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: International Machine Consortium

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: Fern
would one get a copy of a text message? Can someone please explain the technical part of this?

The conversations are from AOL instant messaging. Presumably the chat application being used stores a copy of conversations in the program log files. Presumably someone has gained access to Foley's laptop and retrieved the conversations. It would have to be a laptop, because the instant messages being circulated which were apparently made from out of state. I don't think the instant messages could come from the young man himself or his family, as apparently they didn't want to make an issue of it and didn't provide full copies of the conversations when they complained (they just said Foley was being too "friendly" and they wanted the contact to stop).

No no, I'm sure the boys provided it, or their parents. Or Foley is a huge idiot and didn't clear his (or not save it in the first place, that is configurable) Boom. Can't avoid that hammer. 😛

The instant messages are from a conversation between one young man and Foley, aren't they? The parents of that kid didn't provide full transcripts when they complained about Foley's behaviour (which is not surprising considering the potentially embarrassing nature of the conversation). If ytou are so sure, feel free to provide links. Many of your comments in this thread contain factual errors.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: International Machine Consortium

Because those issues don't exist. It's public domain stuff because the boys probably released it. They can elect to do that you know. They actually have rights too. Shocking, I know. :disgust:

Well, if the young man released it I agree those issues don't exist (nobody hacked Foley's lappy etc). Of course, if that's the case not much need to worry about the effects of the scandel on him either (Aidanjm's concern).

Still, I'm rather doubtful the young man in question released it. Seems like it would be really embarrasing to me. But hey, ya never know.

Fern

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: International Machine Consortium

Originally posted by: aidanjm
There is something a little bit sick about the Democrats trying to make political hay out of this scandal.

Which is going to be more damaging to the young man involved in this scandal,

1) sleazy emails from a guy old enough to be his father, or

2) records of an embarrassing conversation being circulated widely in the media, with all his family, friends at school/ university, etc. almost certainly aware that he is at the centre of this scandal..? Is the kid now fending off allegations that he is gay from his peers? How long until his name is revealed in the mainstream media? Being at the center of a political sex scandal seems to be a significant strain to place on a young person.

If you actually were concerned for the emotional/ psychological welfare of this young man, wouldn't you want to try and deal with the matter more quietly (the way he and his parents wanted when they first complained)? How difficult would it have been to bundle Foley out of office/ convince him to resign quietly?

It seems deeply cynical for Democrats to try and turn this into political advantage. Almost as cynical as Republicans ignoring the warning signs about Foley because they wanted his campaign donations or didn't want to lose his seat to democrats.

Oh sure, blame the situation on the Democrats. That's absurd. Stop knee-jerking for the gay man. I don't care if he's gay. This needs to be investigated and it will be. The idea that those who want answers are repsonsible for any emotional harm those boys might have is ridiculous. How about the Republicans who want answers? Is that "deeply cynical"? Wake up.

Republicans see this as an opportunity to attack gays, by re-affirming stereotypes of gay people as child molesters. It's also an opportunity to attack liberals by characterizing them as "tolerant" of depravity. Hence various Republicans saying they couldn't have criticised Foley because they would have been accused of gay-bashing.

 

[ProfJohn]

Ok, everyone agrees that Foley is scum, no disagreement at all on that point.

The story is no longer about what Foley did, but what, if any, cover up did the Republicans engage in.

The Democrats are questioning the follow:
1. When did Hastert know about the e-mails.
2. What did he do about them and why didn?t he dig deep enough?
3. Why didn?t they inform the Democrat on the House page board of these e-mails.

Now if the story comes out that a Democrat, any Democrat, knew about the e-mails AND the sexual IMs, then why did that Democrat not do anything?

How can you accuse the Republicans of engaging in a cover up when a member of your own party had the same information and did nothing about it? If this turns out to be true then the Democrat who knew about sexual content of the IMs and did nothing will have a lot of explaining to do.

You may not like Dick Morris, but I have never known him to lie about something. Why would he ?create? a story like this and risk his reputation by stating it on national TV? Maybe he got some false information and the story is incorrect. I promise that the day Morris comes out and says that the story about a Democrat knowing was false I?ll be right here to apologize. (Read my posts, I?ve admitted to being wrong or making mistakes)

BTW: The source of the e-mails and IMs seems to be a group called C.R.E.W. which is a George Soros funded group, you know who George is right? The money behind moveon.org and Air America. So the idea that the release of this information was ?timed? to political damage is becoming more and more apparent. If these people are so worried about this poor innocent pages why didn?t they release the sexual IMs the second they got a hold of them?

*This is a repost for the other Foley thread because it is relevent to this thread as well*

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
How can you accuse the Republicans of engaging in a cover up when a member of your own party had the same information and did nothing about it?

you're engaging in the fox news question mark slander 😛

to the best of my knowledge, republicans deliberately kept this information from any and all congressional democrats.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: loki8481

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
How can you accuse the Republicans of engaging in a cover up when a member of your own party had the same information and did nothing about it?

you're engaging in the fox news question mark slander 😛

to the best of my knowledge, republicans deliberately kept this information from any and all congressional democrats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX5-YUVDgcg

It's all they have, they don't work with facts so they make stuff up and float it to contaminate the landscape. Fox has mastered this.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Strk
Defense by blaming someone else.....

Want to know who taught us this "Defense" ??

Hillary Clinton: "Look at the very people who are involved in this. They have popped up in other settings. The great story here for anybody willing to find it, write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president,"

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Strk
Defense by blaming someone else.....

Want to know who taught us this "Defense" ??

Hillary Clinton: "Look at the very people who are involved in this. They have popped up in other settings. The great story here for anybody willing to find it, write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president,"

do you really feel comfortable comparing yourself to Hillary Clinton as your defense? 😉

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
dahunan, none of us have defended the behavior of Foley, I have not seen one post saying that what he did was ok. We have been talking about other things.

At the same time William Jefferson, who had $100,000 in his freezer is still running for office. I guess the message here is that if you are a pervert you should be run out of town and anyone who ever talked to you should be run out of town as well, but if you abuse your power and take bribes from foreign corporations you should not only keep you seat but go ahead and run for re-election. Nice standards....

Nice choice of examples, especially since Hastert was among the loudest complaining about the FBI raid that netted the money stashed in Jefferson's freezer proving what a crook he was.

Hastert tells President Bush FBI raid was unconstitutional
By Patrick O?Connor

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) told President Bush yesterday that he is concerned the Federal Bureau of Investigation?s (FBI) raid on Rep. William Jefferson?s (D-La.) congressional office over the weekend was a direct violation of the Constitution.

Hastert raised concerns that the FBI?s unannounced seizure of congressional documents during a raid of Jefferson?s Rayburn office Saturday night violated the separation of powers between the two branches of government as they are defined by the Constitution.

As I said... Nice choice of an example... if you happen to be a moron or if you think the rest of us are stupid enough to fall for your BS.

Harvey... the raid Hastert complained about was the raid of Jefferson's House office.
"on August 3, 2005, FBI agents raided Jefferson's home in Northeast Washington and, as noted in an 83-page affidavit filed to support a subsequent raid on his Congressional office, "found $90,000 of the cash in the freezer, in $10,000 increments wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed inside frozen-food containers." Serial numbers found on the currency in the freezer matched serial numbers of funds given by the FBI to their informant."
"Late in the night of May 20, 2006, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Jefferson's office in the Rayburn House Office Building."
Hastert defended the raid of his house office
The article you linked too was written in May of 2006, long after they FBI had the money.

Who is the one trying to pass on stupid BS now? Try reading your links in the future 😉

 

[ProfJohn]

Some Timeline to help clear up some confusion people.

The IMs with all the sex in them seem to date from 2003.
Foley Instant Message Chat While Waiting For a House Vote
Click here to read an exclusive 2003 Internet exchange between Congressman Foley and a page

The e-mails that Hastert knew about were from 2005, right after Katrina.

Therefore the boy from Louisiana is NOT the same one who he was sending sexual IMs with.

In fact if the House leadership had done everything in their power to investigate the 2005 e-mails they would have not been lead to the sexual IMs because they were to a DIFFERENT person.

The TV media seems to be glossing over this fact.

One last thing, according to some blogs one of the people in the sexual IMs has been identified and he MIGHT have been 18 at the time of the "internet sex while Foley was voting" thing. If their information is right the former page turned 18 in Feb of 2003. So the Feb chat was while he was under age, but the IM sex was after he turned 18.
Interesting stuff, like I said there are 35 more days till the election plenty of time for the whole story to come out.
Blog post identifying the page in the sex IMs (This is a blog, and is certainly biased, so read everything with a grain of salt, but if what they say is true then it certainly adds a twist to the story.)

Foley is a pervert who resigned, good riddance. I am concerned with the story behind this story and the timing of its release. The more I read the more apparent that the timing was politically motivated.

 

[UberNeuman]

Originally posted by: Gaard
Is it just me or has every post by a Republican about this matter gone something like this

"Yes. What he did was wrong, but..."

Pretty much. The Elephant continues to dance around the elephant in the room...

 

[International Machine Consortium]

Federal investigators have asked the House of Representatives to keep computer records and papers from former Rep. Mark Foley's office, a senior Justice Department official said Wednesday.

The move is a sign that a criminal investigation into the congressman's correspondences with teen pages is imminent, perhaps within days, Justice Department officials said.

The investigation remains a preliminary inquiry, but a full criminal investigation will pave the way for subpoenas, searches and grand jury testimony, Justice Department officials said.

House members are expected to cooperate with any necessary searches during the probe, according to federal law enforcement sources. (Watch the House speaker insist GOP leaders didn't initially see the messages to the page -- 2:25 Video)

Foley, a Republican who represented a district in Florida, resigned Friday amid allegations that he sent "overly friendly" e-mails to a male teenage page in the House. Soon afterward, sexually explicit instant messages, allegedly between Foley and a page, surfaced. The former congressman checked in to a treatment facility Sunday for alcoholism and mental issues, his lawyer said.

Attorney David Roth held a news conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday to announce that Foley was gay and had been molested when he was a teen by a clergyman. Roth would not elaborate. He said Foley would explain when he was discharged from the treatment center, which will take at least 30 days.

Roth conceded that his client engaged in inappropriate exchanges with pages and former pages. However, Roth emphatically stated that Foley "never, ever had an inappropriate sexual contact with a minor in his life." Any assertion that Foley is a pedophile is "categorically false," Roth said. (Watch Roth explain how Foley was molested -- 2:07 Video)

Foley was under the influence of alcohol when he wrote the messages, the attorney said.

Roth's statement came shortly after ABC News published an instant message exchange that it said showed Foley had cybersex with a teen before a House vote in 2003. ABC News has released several portions of lurid instant messages, allegedly between Foley and a page.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/04/foley.scandal/index.html

 

[International Machine Consortium]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1542636,00.html

On the conference call, a rank-and-file member asked about a report, circulating in the leadership since at least Friday, that Foley had showed up drunk at a page dorm. A House leader said that the alleged visit should be discussed privately because reporters might learn about the call, according to people who were on the call.

Juicy tidbit for y'alls consumption.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
One last thing, according to some blogs one of the people in the sexual IMs has been identified and he MIGHT have been 18 at the time of the "internet sex while Foley was voting" thing. If their information is right the former page turned 18 in Feb of 2003. So the Feb chat was while he was under age, but the IM sex was after he turned 18.
Interesting stuff, like I said there are 35 more days till the election plenty of time for the whole story to come out.
Blog post identifying the page in the sex IMs (This is a blog, and is certainly biased, so read everything with a grain of salt, but if what they say is true then it certainly adds a twist to the story.)

Jesus - that guy is a completely blackhearted scumbag for releasing the kid's identity. This kid is a young Republican who's obviously very politically active, and certainly doesn't deserve to be outed like this.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: Gaard
Is it just me or has every post by a Republican about this matter gone something like this

"Yes. What he did was wrong, but..."

ProfJohn != every republican posting on this matter. Actually, of the right leaning members here, PJ seems to be the only one actively defending Foley.

Edit: Too many maybes and ifs for my second comment

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Foley is a pervert who resigned, good riddance.

if the "cyber-sex" conversation took place between an 18 year old adult and Foley, then how is he any more "perverted" than a 50-something guy dating an 18 year old woman? basically you're saying any expression of sexual arousal between two apparently gay adults is perverted.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: DonVito
Jesus - that guy is a completely blackhearted scumbag for releasing the kid's identity. This kid is a young Republican who's obviously very politically active, and certainly doesn't deserve to be outed like this.

no more black hearted than the democrats who decided to turn this thing into a scandal for their own political gain. How difficult would it have been to deal with the situation quietly, forcing Foley to quietly resign and disappear. By hyping this into a huge sex scandal, they practically guaranteed this kid's life would be fvcked up to some extent.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: DonVito
Jesus - that guy is a completely blackhearted scumbag for releasing the kid's identity. This kid is a young Republican who's obviously very politically active, and certainly doesn't deserve to be outed like this.

no more black hearted than the democrats who decided to turn this thing into a scandal for their own political gain. How difficult would it have been to deal with the situation quietly, forcing Foley to quietly resign and disappear. By hyping this into a huge sex scandal, they practically guaranteed this kid's life would be fvcked up to some extent.

To this point it's just supposition that this scandal was created by the Democrats. In the meantime, the family notified Congress about the problem years ago, it found its way to the Speaker of the House, and nothing was done. The Republicans had the opportunity to handle this quietly and failed to do so (leaving Foley as the head of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus in the process). I am not completely absolving the Democrats (its premature to do that), but it's clear IMO that the Republicans are the ones primarily to blame for this.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Foley is a pervert who resigned, good riddance.

if the "cyber-sex" conversation took place between an 18 year old adult and Foley, then how is he any more "perverted" than a 50-something guy dating an 18 year old woman? basically you're saying any expression of sexual arousal between two apparently gay adults is perverted.

Holy crap Batman, I'm almost 54 and the thought of having sex with someone even younger then my 2 daughters is actually kind of revolting..... to me anyway.

 

[Craig234]

no more black hearted than the democrats who decided to turn this thing into a scandal for their own political gain. How difficult would it have been to deal with the situation quietly, forcing Foley to quietly resign and disappear. By hyping this into a huge sex scandal, they practically guaranteed this kid's life would be fvcked up to some extent.

Ah, Aidanjm -

I remember your posts arguing the same thing about how you were concerned about screwing up Monica Lewinsky's situation.

But I could be mistaken.

Of course the republicans always behave the way you suggest over the far fewer democratic scandals.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

1) This 'scandal' was created by Foley . . . a Republican from Florida.

2) The release of information came from sources CLOSE to it. Either ex-pages or aides to select Republican Congressmen . . . let's face it . . . no aide to a Congresswoman would look the other way.

3) Republican aide smack dab in the middle says . . . you don't need no friggin' email or IM . . . I told the Speaker's office about Foley YEARS ago.

Fordham elaborated in an interview with ABC News and said he told Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, that Foley was too friendly with the pages, and that Palmer talked to Foley.

Hastert's spokesman Ron Bonjean told ABC News, "That [warning] never happened."

Added Palmer, "What Kirk Fordham said did not happen."

In a statement to CNN, Bonjean said only that "this matter has been referred to the Standards Committee and we fully expect that the bipartisan panel will do what it needs to do to investigate this matter and protect the integrity of the House." (Full story)

A GOP leadership aide, however, questioned why Fordham told AP on Wednesday morning that he "had no inkling that this kind of blatantly reckless -- just obscene -- behavior was going on behind our backs," but later said he had warned Hastert about it.

"It's contradictory from what he said just this morning. He's changed his story," the aide said.

Curiously, it seems like all the Republicans involved with this affair have been changing their stories in a CYA-mode of epic and ironic proportions.

 

[Moonbeam]

Republicans are always confused as to whether to protect or eat their children.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Republicans are always confused as to whether to protect or eat their children.

They need to carefully weigh which one is more politically advantageous.

 

[International Machine Consortium]

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: DonVito
Jesus - that guy is a completely blackhearted scumbag for releasing the kid's identity. This kid is a young Republican who's obviously very politically active, and certainly doesn't deserve to be outed like this.

no more black hearted than the democrats who decided to turn this thing into a scandal for their own political gain. How difficult would it have been to deal with the situation quietly, forcing Foley to quietly resign and disappear. By hyping this into a huge sex scandal, they practically guaranteed this kid's life would be fvcked up to some extent.

Still blaming the messenger I see, not the a-hole that actually harmed the kid. You're twisted.