US ethics panel extends Foley conduct probe

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.

In a separate investigation, the FBI was to meet today in Oklahoma City with a former page who may have received suggestive electronic messages from Foley, the former page’s lawyer said.

The two probes centre on the nature of Foley’s relationship with teenagers, called pages, who serve as errand-runners for members of Congress.

The House Ethics Committee inquiry was moving quickly.

Charlie Keller, spokesman for Republican Representative Ginny Brown-Waite, said she contacted two pages before receiving the committee request and asked if they were aware of inappropriate behaviour from Foley, any other lawmaker or staff members. Both said they were not.

Aides for other House members reported similar results yesterday.

The ethics committee leaders, in a letter to all House members, asked them to contact current and former pages they sponsored to learn whether any of them had “inappropriate communications or interactions” with Foley or any other House member.

The ethics panel, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, also directed politicians to cast a wide net and ask aides what they might have heard about improper approaches by Foley or others to pages before revelations about his sexually explicit internet messages surfaced last month.

Foley resigned on September 29.

In Oklahoma City, meanwhile, attorney Stephen Jones said his client, Jordan Edmund, would be questioned by the FBI, The Oklahoman newspaper reported.

Edmund, a Californian, has been living in Oklahoma City and working as a deputy campaign manager for the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Representative Ernest Istook.

Edmund was a US House page in 2001 and 2002. The FBI is investigating whether Foley sent Edmund inappropriate emails.

Meanwhile, the lawyer for Kirk Fordham, Foley’s former chief of staff, said his client could testify before the committee as early as this week. Fordham has said he informed House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s staff in 2003 about Foley’s inappropriate messages to pages.