Foley aide confirms early GOP tip-off

WASHINGTON – Former Rep. Mark Foley’s one-time aide didn’t waver Thursday from his contention that he told the speaker’s chief of staff about Foley’s approaches to male pages at least three years ago, the witness’ lawyer said.

Kirk Fordham’s lawyer, Timothy Heaphy, said Fordham was “consistent in his accounts.”

House Speaker Dennis Hastert has said he personally learned of the inappropriate approaches by Foley in late September and his aides found out in the fall of 2005. The speaker’s chief of staff, Scott Palmer, has denied that Fordham contacted him at least three years ago, contradicting Fordham and creating one of the major conflicts the House Ethics Committee will have to resolve.

Foley resigned from Congress Sept. 29, after being confronted with sexually explicit instant messages.

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., scheduled to appear today, has said he confronted Foley last fall, after he was told by Hastert’s office of an overly friendly – but not sexually explicit – e-mail to a page from Louisiana.

Shimkus is chairman of the House Page Board, a group of three lawmakers and two House officers who set policy for the program that brings teenagers to Congress to attend school and perform errands in the chamber during sessions.

Shimkus has said that he and then-House clerk Jeff Trandahl confronted Foley in his office last fall after hearing from Hastert’s aides about the e-mail. Shimkus said he told Foley to cease all contact with the Louisiana teenager.

Another Republican House member, Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, has pushed the timeline on GOP knowledge of Foley’s conduct back to 2001.

Kolbe said a former page contacted his office to report receiving e-mails from Foley that made him uncomfortable. “I was not shown the content of the messages and was not told they were sexually explicit. It was my recommendation that this complaint be passed along to Rep. Foley’s office and the clerk who supervised the page program. This was done promptly,” he said.