GOP. Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) was apparently the first member of Congress to know about Foley's trolling for underage kids online. Alexander was the former boss of one of the pages who Foley chatted up. Alexander says that he then contacted the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee (the body in charge of electing Republicans to the House), Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY).
First off, we all thought it strange that Alexander's first action wasn't to report the alleged child predator to the Ethics Committee, the FBI, or even the Capitol Police. Rather, Alexander reported it to a political body, as though this were a story to be dealt with politically.
Second, it's not at all clear what if anything Reynold's did to address this shocking revelation.
But now the other shoe drops. Reynold's chief of staff is Kirk Fordham, the former chief of staff and former campaign director to Mark Foley (I've known Fordham for years). Here is Reynold's announcement about hiring Fordham last October:
U.S. Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, R- Clarence, today announced he has hired Kirk Fordham as his Chief of Staff.... Fordham also served as Rep. Mark Foley's, R-FL, Chief of Staff and campaign manager...And Fordham returned in the past few days to Foley's side to advise him on this scandal.
Kirk Fordham, who worked as Foley's chief of staff for 10 years, returned to Foley's side to advise him during the past couple of days.Fordham, Foley's guy, was hired by Reynolds at or around the time that Alexander went to Reynolds with the Foley story (Alexander says he found out about the scandal "ten or eleven months ago"). Is that why Alexander went to Reynolds, because Foley's guy worked for him? In other words, Alexander wasn't interested in reporting this to the authorities, he was interested in helping Foley by approaching "friends of Foley"? Not to mention, how serious an investigation did Reynold's do when his own chief of staff (assuming Fordham was there at the time) immediately ran to advise Foley on how to handle the scandal? Hardly an impartial investigator.
And one more point. According to all the sources we can find online, Fordham is still Reynolds' chief of staff. Why is Reynolds' chief of staff now advising Foley on this mess? This simply adds to the inherent conflicts of interest that have dogged this "investigation" from the beginning.
The entire story gets more and more incestuous, and the cover-up grows.
