Barlett: White House Opposes Independent Probe of Foley Scandal, Praises House Leadership As ‘Very Aggressive’
Barlett: White House Opposes Independent Probe of Foley Scandal, Praises House Leadership As ‘Very Aggressive’
House leadership “knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues.”
Nevertheless, this morning on ABC, top White House aide Dan Bartlett praised the House leadership’s handling of the Foley scandal as “very aggressive,” and said the White House opposes an independent investigation of the issue. Watch it:
Full transcript:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Number one, was the President aware of any of these allegations. Number two, the Washington Post is calling for an independent investigation. Do you think that’s appropriate?
BARTLETT: The president was not aware of this. It is a shocking revelation to see this type of allegation. The members of the House of Representatives, the leadership, appear to be very aggressive in pursuing this investigation and I think that’s the best place is for the leadership to determine the way forward.
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49 Responses to “Barlett: White House Opposes Independent Probe of Foley Scandal, Praises House Leadership As ‘Very Aggressive’”
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My, how surprising–a Republican unwilling to investigate crimes committed by other members of his own party. This is so unlike them–they’re usually so responsible.
October 1st, 2006 at 12:44 pmfunny..they have been agressive? Thats why it took the ‘crime’ to go public before they moved an inch……
October 1st, 2006 at 12:47 pmWouldn’t want an honest non-partisan investigation would we? Just keep it in house, I’m sure it will be another bogus banana investigation.
October 1st, 2006 at 12:49 pmCall me crazy, but didn’t GOP leadership refuse to bring Pelosi’s bill to the floor? I’d hardly call that aggressive.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:15 pmThese people stand for absolutely nothing except holding onto power. Nothing.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:18 pmSome days I really can’t believe all of this is real. It’s too much like a badly scripted Soap Opera.
The megalomaniacs in the White House are too much.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:19 pminvestigations don’t solve anything - all they do is bring up more facts that need to be covered up
October 1st, 2006 at 1:21 pmThey opposed an independent 9/11 commission too… and succeeded.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:21 pmHere’s the money shot:
The members of the House of Representatives, the leadership, appear to be very aggressive in pursuing this investigation…
Bartlett should get a medal…
Stephanopoulos had a follow up question, right? Didn’t think so…
October 1st, 2006 at 1:23 pmOf course they don’t want an independent investigation, it may lead to places that the WH doesn’t want to go. “Aggressive” in their minds is months……they are so full of it. But you know they keep getting elected…what does that say. We don’t protest the results of elections, so here we are!
October 1st, 2006 at 1:24 pmHere’s the problem. An independent investigation is apt to reveal that the average 16-year-old boy has more smarts than the senior leadership of the Republican Party. The kid figured it out in no time flat and said keep this sicko away from me. The geniuses who run the GOP are easily taken in by anybody who wraps themselves in an American flag and waves a Bible. In their minds, he was just being “overly friendly.” He wanted a picture of the boy because he really needed to make sure the kid was safe after the hurricane. The leadership bought that line? Good god, no wonder we’ve wasted billions in the War on Terror and just made things worse.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:32 pmYeah, this is the same WH that opposed an independent commission to explore 9/11.
Dan Bartlett makes my skin crawl.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:33 pmOh, believe me, they are NOT dumb! They just play us as dumb and we let them (WE as in the media, Dems, we the people.) We need to show up at the polls in Nov. and run the B——s out. Then when the machines call the Repugs winners…take to the streets and take back our country!
October 1st, 2006 at 1:38 pmSo does G.O.P. now stand for Gay Old Pedolphiles? Sure seems apt.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:40 pmShould an alleged pederast/pervert be treated any differently than an enemy combatant?
If these allegations are true, and Foley is guilty of these crimes, why not send him away without a right to an attorney, or a trial?
If you read this, and you’re one of those conservative, deeply Christian voters… consider the possibility here: Are senior members and possibly the white house aiding and abetting child perverts? Can you in good conscious vote for such people?
October 1st, 2006 at 1:40 pmIt’s obvious. The GOP sees nothing wrong with sexual predators inside it’s own ranks. It’s do as I legislate not as I do.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:41 pmre: #14, not that there’s anything wrong with the former but the incredible hypocracy that emanates the GOP is astounding.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:43 pmReform The DC Page Program
1st of October 2006
by Jay Randal
The exploding scandal in Washington, DC, involving Rep. Mark Foley sending emails and IMs to underage male Pages soliciting sexual favors requires extensive investigation and reform of the Page program as well!
Since sexual abuse of children/teenagers is a problem, in America, therefore it would be wise for Congress to end the exploitation of underage Pages in Washington, and to require that Pages be at least 18 years of age!
There is NO legitimate reason to allow underage kids un-supervised access to members of Congress, nor to members of their staffs, nor should they be considered as sex objects to amuse the fantasies of Congressmen!
The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives have negligently allowed a Gay sexual predator access to teenage male Pages, and enabled solicitation of them via emails and IMs for sexual exploitation too!
Americans want their children to be protected from sexual predators, wherever they lurk to abuse them, so the Congress must reform the Page program now!
( Jay Randal, political activist and writer in Stone Mountain, Georgia.)
PS: Everyone must contact their Reps/Senators to demand investigation of Rep. Mark Foley and indictment as a predator.
October 1st, 2006 at 1:45 pmComment on # 15: Yes, they are aiding and abetting perverts. That’s the way they keep the House and Senate in line. Use their sickness as blackmail. I believe they encourage “sickos” to run for office…they can be controlled or revealed! That is the sorry mess we are in! GET OUT AND VOTE NOV 7!!!!!
October 1st, 2006 at 1:47 pmThey knew about Foley for months and did NOTHING to protect other boys from this freak.
Again republicans fail to protect Americans!
Hastert and Boehner need to resign too.
I certainly hope this gets the outrage it deserves to the point where they can’t deny opening an independent investigation.
Republicans have proven that their congressional seats are more important than ridding themselves of a pedophile - how absolutely evil is that?
October 1st, 2006 at 2:12 pmOnce again Republicans are praising themselves for doing a lousy job.
October 1st, 2006 at 2:16 pmIt once again astounds me that the so-called party of moral values would so fervently support a cover-up of yet another sick pervert in their ranks.
At what point will regular Americans finally figure this out!?? This party, the Geriatric Obtuse Pedophiles party, is worse than any well-meaning blunders Democrats will create! The Republican scum only know how to steal elections and divide people! They cannot govern their way out of a wet paper bag!
HAD ENOUGH!? Vote November 7th for someone who will investigate, indict, impeach and then incarcerate the bastards!
October 1st, 2006 at 2:22 pmTell all your conservative friends to watch Fox. See how they defend those republicans who aided and abetted a pedophile. Or it just might be that they brush the story under the rug altogether.
Tell your conservative pals at the office to wake up. Let this water cooler talk address the repulsive truth about this party.
October 1st, 2006 at 2:41 pmThe ONLY way these reichwing bastards would do ANY aggresive investigation is if Foley had been a democrat, then they would go ballistic.
October 1st, 2006 at 2:41 pmOh, believe me, they are NOT dumb! They just play us as dumb and we let them (WE as in the media, Dems, we the people.) We need to show up at the polls in Nov. and run the B——s out. Then when the machines call the Repugs winners…take to the streets and take back our country!
Comment by beachnana
October 1st, 2006 at 2:42 pmYou can speak for me anytime.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for this emerging scandal! There could be other GOP members involved in sexually abusing underage male Pages, so therefore the reason to try to keep a lid on any investigation?! There have been child prostitute rings operating in DC in the past, so were the male Pages being recruited for prostitution to satisfy the lusts of perverted Congressmen like Foley? Who else in the GOP are involved?
October 1st, 2006 at 2:53 pmBarlett seems very serious and agreesive in the picture, so I believe him. Yeah, Im stupid.
October 1st, 2006 at 3:00 pmJuan,
Bartlett practices that look in the mirror every morning. :)
October 1st, 2006 at 3:09 pmYes, it was so aggressive they did nothing!!
Thus we must not investigate!
Just like 9/11 commission!!
SPIN SPIN SPIN
CHANGE THAT GOALPOST!!
SPIN SPIN SPIN
October 1st, 2006 at 3:18 pmWe in the White are only agressive when it comes to people outside of the White House!!
IOKIYAN!!
It’s okay if your a Neo-Con pervert or pedophile or drug addict or even a plagiarist!
Limabugh [drug addict hypocrite] is OK!,
O’Reilly [falafel pervert] is OK!,
Anne Coulter [Plagiarist is OK!,
Condi Rice [mushroom cloud] is OK!,
Foley, [pedophile] is OK!,
Cunningham [corruption] is OK!,
Abramoff [corruption] is OK!,
Safavian [corruption] is Ok!,
Ney [drunk corrupt] is OK!,
We do not need an investigation, Ok?
NEY WAY!!
October 1st, 2006 at 3:25 pmHey Bartlett,
Newt says the “investigation” by House Leaders was NOT aggressive.
They just couldn’t investigate aggressively, ya know?
Newt says House Leaders cound not investigate aggressively so as not to upset “gays.”
To Bartlett-get ready for an independent prosecutor.
October 1st, 2006 at 4:11 pmTo Newt-Republicans never worry about offending “gays.”
Dan, Dan, Dan. SIGH… What are we going to do with you? For starters, if all you do is tell a Congressman not to send anymore naughty e-mails to children, and just assume that no more needs to be done, well that hardly qualifies as an “aggressive” investigation on the part of House Leadership. They did not ‘get busy’ until they got busted, as usual. And Republicans are notoriously unable to investigate themselves. They like to pretend that they will do it, but they NEVER follow through. And since we all know that they did absolutely nothing since they first knew about all this, why should we think for a moment that they would do anything now? Forget it, Zippy. Oh, one other thing, your answer here was so pathetically, obviously a lie. Karl is not going to be very happy with you! Perhaps you should take a vacation, a really long one.
October 1st, 2006 at 4:26 pmI think the repukes were just waiting to get the torture bill passed so they could water board the young lads and get to the bottom of it all.
October 1st, 2006 at 6:40 pmthis just in:
Hastert requests criminal probe of Foley
AP - 9 minutes ago…
October 1st, 2006 at 6:45 pm“It’s vile,†said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. “It’s more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction.†— On Bill Clinton — 1998
October 1st, 2006 at 8:27 pmThe White House’s Position On The Foley Page Scandal…
The link below speaks volumes about whether there was an attempt to keep the scandal about Rep. Mark Foley and a teenage male page under wraps:
The White House is …
October 1st, 2006 at 8:53 pm#35..WOW, that quote is so telling of the old “pot calling the kettle black.”
What is amazing to me is that I’ve yet to hear anyone descibe the instant messaging for what is was…Foley was cybersexing with the boy. Foley was getting his rocks off chatting in the IM about masterbation. I guess no one wants to say it was cybersex because of the picture that begins to form in ones mind.
October 1st, 2006 at 9:25 pmAnd Bartlett claims that Bush wasn’t aware of it. Apparently the White House thinks the entire country just fell off the truck. The problem is that half the country (the right) did fall off the truck and believe the lies these perverts spew. Yeah, right, Bush is in the WH basement hiding out from any outside news.
October 1st, 2006 at 9:30 pmI definitely agree with a previous poster’s comments in reference to power.
How many have actually read the e-mails? I was not only appalled at the subject matter, but equally appalled at Mark Foley’s grammatical mistakes. Foley refers to the boy’s “BULDGE.” Bulge is misssssspellllllllled.
OBVIOUSLY, MARK FOLEY IS HOOKED ON PHALLUSES MORE THAN HE’S HOOKED ON PHONICS.
It should be noted that, as a congressional representative, Mark Foley has had little interest in the huge escalating deficit. Don’t you think that as a well-respected, trusted politician he should have been crunching deficit NUMBERS quite a bit? I think so! Obviously, again, deficit NUMBERS weren’t floating around in his pea-sized brain.
However, the boy’s penis size NUMBER was floating around in his pea-sized brain. No wonder we have such a huge deficit. Homosexual Republicans are focusing on the wrong NUMBERS. Darn! Darn! No wonder Jeff Gannon is such a good, fabulous friend to many Republicans in p-o-s-i-t-i-o-n-s of power.
It’s also interesting to note that Mark Foley has been voted as one of the best-dressed congressman. Let’s get real folks!!! I didn’t know that being in your “birthday suit” classifies as being well-dressed. Where do these homosexual Republicans HANG OUT? They must HANG OUT at nudist colonies.
When Mark Foley returns to Florida, I suggest he consult, Neil Bush. Neil Bush can spruce up not only Foley’s questionable writing skills, but his questionable morals as well. We’re counting on you, Neil. Thanks, Neil.
John
October 1st, 2006 at 10:46 pmI crossed my fingers that I didn’t misssssppppell any words. I did!
“CongressMEN” is the correct sppppellling.
John
October 1st, 2006 at 11:00 pmWe need to push back on this by blogging about the need for an outside special counsel to get to the bottom of this and emailing the AG and Congress.
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:04 amOne and only one comment,
BWAAAHAHAAAHAAHAHHAAAAAHAHAHAAAAA~!
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:07 am[…] UPDATE: the White House officially opposes an independent investigation of the issue. […]
October 2nd, 2006 at 10:26 amRacketeers? Foley’s $100,000 “contribution” to the NRCC in July should be suspected to be a payoff to the NRCC & Republican leadership as protection money.
See: http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1159730867.shtml
UPDATE: Also: On July 27, 2006, the NRCC, which Reynolds chairs, accepted an unusually large contribution of $100,000 from Foley. Hard to imagine something of that size just slipping past the chairman.
Of course, there could be an explanation (and we are sure we will hear one) for this — but this story is going to go on for a while.
October 2nd, 2006 at 11:39 amThis man probably had a PLAYGROUND of KIDS being top of the missing and exploited children RING.
Don’t let this thing die. This is the equivalent of letting a alligator baby sit. you know he is going to bite. A pedophile chairing the missing and exploited children dpt you know he’s going to try and F a child.
October 2nd, 2006 at 2:42 pmDenny Hastert’s been doing a hell of a job investigating this!
A question that needs to be repeated over and over: “What if it was your kid?”
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:52 amThis will not only go down as the worst Presidency in American history, it will also be remembered as the most corrupt, despicable Republican lead congress that has ever served as well.
These guys are scum. They act so pristine when caught in a cover-up when all the while they are covering up their dirty little secrets in hopes that nobody catches them in the Act.
Once found out, they stand at the mic and proclaim they will get to the bottom of things… Then they go to work creating partisan commissions to hide what they can and distort the rest.
Very aggressive is an understatement and not what this investigation needs. A honest non-partisan probe needs to be shoved up their behinds and examined through a microscope turning them inside out to get to the bottom of this corruption.
On a day when children are being assassinated in Amish schools, we hear pages in congress, (young children,) are being exposed to pedophiles and their handlers on capital hill. This is as low as it gets.
Hastert should resign. He stands there and says we need to find out who knew about this when all along he did! He was lying to the American people.
I wonder what Bush knew because if Hassert knew you can bet your bottom dollar Bush, Chaney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Rove, (especially Rove) knew. That by any definition is a cover-up. High crimes in any book.
Enough is enough.
These Republicans sicken me.
October 3rd, 2006 at 3:40 pmMaybe now they’ll take a closer look at Barney Frank’s Gay Porn & Prostitution charges and run that poofter out of congress too! Right, think progress?…
Oh..you only pile on when it is a conservative who falters.
You Simple minded twits! See You All in November in the back of the bus!
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:01 pm[…] Page Summary: The Republican scum only know how to steal elections and divide people. Let this water cooler talk address the repulsive truth about this party. Then when the machines call the Repugs winners?take to the streets and take back our country. There have been child prostitute rings operating in DC in the past, so were the male Pages being recruited for prostitution to satisfy the lusts of perverted Congressmen like Foley.read more | digg story […]
October 26th, 2006 at 10:59 pm