Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe confronted Mark Foley about his Internet communications with teenagers as early as 2000, according to a newspaper report.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday night that a former page showed Kolbe some Internet messages from then-Congressman Foley, also a Republican, that had made the page uncomfortable. Kolbe's press secretary, Korenna Cline, told the Post that a Kolbe staff member advised the page last week to discuss the matter with the clerk of the House.
Cline denied the messages were sexually explicit, telling the Post only that they had made the former page uncomfortable. She said "corrective action" was taken, although she did not know whether that went beyond Kolbe's confrontation with Foley.
Rank-and-file Republicans, meanwhile, sought to mount a public defense of Speaker Dennis Hastert over the scandal, which is threatening their congressional control one month before the elections.
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But a House Republican leader under fire for his handling of the scandal canceled a national broadcast appearance and one Republican lawmaker said those who participated in a cover-up would have to resign.
"Anybody that hindered this in any kind of way, tried to step in the way of hiding this, covering it up, is going to have to step down. Whoever that is," said Congressman Tom Davis on Sunday.
The House ethics committee is investigating the matter. If it finds evidence of a cover-up, the punishment could range from a mild rebuke in a committee report to a House vote of censure or expulsion.
Congressman Thomas Reynolds, who heads the House Republicans' re-election effort, would have been the chamber's top Republican official on the Sunday talk shows. Booked weeks ago for ABC's This Week, his office canceled without explanation on Saturday and arranged for a substitute guest, Congressman Adam Putnam, a Florida Republican, a network spokeswoman said.
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Reynolds has been criticized by Democrats who say he did too little to protect a male teenage House intern from Foley, the Florida Republican who resigned on Sept. 29 after the disclosure of his sexually explicit electronic messages to former former teen interns. Foley is now under investigation by federal and Florida authorities.
The scandal has ignited a political firestorm, jeopardizing the Republican majority in the US Congress just before the Nov. 7 elections, when American voters will select all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 33 of the 100 senators and 36 of the 50 state governors.
On the day after Foley resigned, Reynolds said he had told Hastert months ago about concerns that Foley had sent inappropriate messages to male teen interns after Reynolds became aware of them last spring.
Hastert since has insisted he was not aware of the charges until more recently. Reynolds, meanwhile, now says he cannot remember exactly when he learned of Foley's e-mails or when he told Hastert about them.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not