UPDATE: Guess what? The story changed again! CNN just reported that the chief of staff, who is saying he "resigned," even though ABC says he was fired, is now saying he resigned because the Democrats were trying to use him as an election issue to hurt his boss, Tom Reynolds. Uh, then why is it that ABC is reporting that you're telling people you quit/were fired because you're being scapegoated by the Republican leadership, and that Denny Hastert in particular demanded that you be fired? Please, all of you, keep talking.
Reynolds just fired his chief of staff for his role in the Foley scandal, but the details surrounding the firing suggest that Reynolds lied about his, and his chief of staff's, involvement in the page scandal.
According to ABC News, Fordham, the chief of staff, was instrumental in stopping Foley from being investigated further:
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.First off, bull. We've been highly critical of Fordham over the past several days, but this reeks of Fordham being scapegoated for the sins of the House GOP leadership. One House staffer has more power than Denny Hastert? Than John Shimkus? You mean the entire House leadership wanted to report the scary child sex predator but a single staffer recommended otherwise, so there was nothing they could do? Excuse me? Who's in charge over there anyway?
"He begged them not to tell the page board," said one of the Republican sources.
According to ABC, Fordham says they're lying:
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.Yes, poor Congressman Shimkus. What was he to do. A staffer disagreed with him, so that meant his hands were tied. They have got to be kidding.
They said Fordham had repeatedly warned Hastert's staff about Foley's "problem" with pages, but little was done.
The complaint about Foley was brought to the chairman of the page board, Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL), last spring, and he then consulted with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Jeff Trandahl.
At Fordham's urging, according to the sources, the matter was not given to the full board, and instead Congressman Foley was privately approached and told to stop all contact with the page he had been e-mailing.
But there's a bigger problem here. Congressman Tom Reynolds (R-NY), Fordham's boss, has been denying for days that Fordham was brought into the discussions about this scandal when Reynolds found out months ago:
Reynolds deflected questions about why he never asked Fordham, who worked for Foley for 10 years, about Foley’s character, saying he had a “member to member” conversation with Alexander and he didn’t discuss other members of Congress with Fordham.Now we know that Reynolds was lying. Fordham was involved quite intimately with the goings on - whether you believe Fordham that he was involved and urging the issue be dealt with, or if you believe Hastert et. al. that Fordham was advising Shimkus to leave Foley alone, either way Fordham was a key player, and Reynolds has been saying for days that Fordham was not.
And finally, isn't it interesting that for days the House GOP leadership has been telling us how they simply never read the emails so they never knew how bad it was. Also, they've been telling us that Foley tricked them, he was such a good liar they never realized how bad it was. But now they tell us that they were convinced Foley was trouble and they desperately wanted to tell the full Page Board but one single staffer wouldn't let them. How is it that the GOP members, at the same time, didn't realize the emails were a big deal and were duped by Foley, but also they were convinced Foley was trouble and wanted to investigate him?
