The sex scandal that has hurt Republicans in the polls expanded on two fronts as Washington’s ethics committee continued its investigation.

A former aide to the US Republican congressman who resigned over a sex scandal plans to testify to a Congressional ethics committee that Republican leaders knew about the problem at least three years ago.

US politicians, following a request from the House Ethics Committee, are surveying aides and former House pages to find out if any of them had knowledge of ex-congressman Mark Foley’s inappropriate conduct toward male pages.

Investigations into an ex-congressman’s teenage online sex scandal were intensifying today as the Republican leader of the House of Representatives who has become embroiled in the political storm said he will not quit.

The leader of the US House of Representatives’ job is on the line as members of the House ethics committee decide how to launch a credible investigation of former Congressman Mark Foley’s salacious computer messages to teenage pages.