Oct 05 2006
ABC Is Trotting Out More Pages – But Where’s The GOP Scandal?
Update: Mark Levin asks the perfect question – how and why did these three pages keep their IM messages from 4, 6 and 8 years ago? Isn’t that kind of interesting?End Update
ABCNews, after being dealt a huge blow to their waning credibility over a false alarm on one Page’s communications from 2003, is ready to trot out three more Pages who will claim Foley approached them. But for what purpose is ABC News doing this? The initial emails from 2005 have been exposed to be nothing, and now the family of that young man claims the media is the predator now – not Foley:
There has been much media inquiry regarding our son and his time as a house page. Although our son bravely came forward with information regarding Congressman Foley, his experience as a House page was not marred by the kind of wrongdoing that appears to have occurred with respect to other House pages and Congressman Foley.
…
Rather, we asked him to see that Congressman Foley stop e-mailing or contacting our son and to otherwise drop the matter in order to avoid a media frenzy. He did so. If we had any other knowledge or evidence of potential impropriety, we would have asked for the matter to be treated differently. For instance, we were not aware of the instant messages that have come to light in the past few days.
…
Despite his courageous actions, he is becoming a victim due to the harassment by some of the media. Please honor our request that we be left alone.
So ABC News is the real culprit in this case, exposing a young man to scrutiny he neither wanted or deserved. And they were duped on the IMs from 2003 apparently, since they do not deny that story was conconcted and later shopped around by Democrat operatives. They are OK with “fake but accurate”. Not one to stop digging the hole they are in, ABC News is now shopping more stories of Pages and Foley:
The pages served in the classes of 1998, 2000 and 2002. They independently approached ABC News after the Foley resignation through the Brian Ross & the Investigative Team’s tip line on ABCNews.com. None wanted their names used because of the sensitive nature of the communications.
But why now? Was Hastert involved? Did ABC News pass these tips to the FBI (where they belong). Does ABC News understand that witnesses can be impeached for this kind of media exposure? Did ABC News warn these people that any charges they wish to bring (depending when the statute of limitations sunsets any claims) could be jeopardized by this media attention? OK, we now know Foley is probably the criminal (or borderline criminal) no one wants hanging around their kids. And I hope the FBI prosecutes him and throws away the keys, if he is found guilty. But ABC News was part of an effort to insinuate GOP leadership was negligent with Foley. Apparently this is not the case – unless one of these new victims will testify they tried to warn the leadership.
The Democrats and media yelled ‘fire’ and blew the first two examples they had. Now that those have fallen apart, new leads are coming out. Wonder if ABC News did the same ‘in depth’ reporting with these cases as the first two. My guess is they did not. Buyer beware with ABC News (which is coming off my link lists if these claims also end up being false charges).
AJ,
I believe the new pages came forward via the internet.
ABC News Foley Tip Page –
Here is the tip page for alleged page victims. Name address and phone # Not required!
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1927431
How in the hell can anyone verify the validity of a tip if someone claims to be a victim but does not need to provide their name, address or telephone number????
>The Democrats and media yelled ‘fire’ and blew the first two examples
>they had. Now that those have fallen apart.
What do you mean, two first examples have fallen apart? The statement in the first case only says the page’s family is troubled by the harrasment of media. This has nothing to do with “history falling apart”, they are not questioning the facts.
I seriously suspect that Jordan Edmund is not very happy about his identity being revealed, and that’s a lot of wishful thinking to say that the second story ‘has fallen apart’. First, there’s no evidence yet that all the sexual talk was with ‘legal’ Jordan, second, ABC talked about two pages engaging in IMs from the very start, third, this “prank” story is quite fishy, four, it doesn’t change much, even if it’s true. The fact that _some_ Democratic people had to do with this story doesn’t make any difference, even if they had some evil “political” intentions. For this to make a difference you have to prove that those “evildoers” had any high-profile links.
AJ – This is just hideous. ABC should be villified for this. It’s appalling.
OT, the Ethics Committee has issued numerous subpoenas. The list I have seen is exclusively Republicans. Has anyone seen anything different? I hope that all areas surrounding this case, including the subsequent handling of these IMs are delved into. No one has looked good in this fiasco.
AJ – Notice in the ABC link – The three new pages gave VERBAL accounts of what transpired. I do not think these 3 have IM copies, and the reason why? They were not pranks – correct. The only person to keep the e-mails needed the copies to corroborate his prank.
So now we are to take at face value 3 more former pages, that admit they continued to e-mail back and forth with Foley (after they were active pages), even visited him, and they now claim sexual malfeasance? GMAB!
So I watched Cable news tonight and every body is still talking about the 16 year old page who was so badly abused by Foley. Don’t they read? So all this time ABC had the e-mail and the IM to one page and the page is a fake. So now they are asking for more sleaze, but don’t leave your name etc. So is this what we are now calling NEWS? News is now tabloid journalism. It makes accusations, innuendo and smears, trying to bring a political party down. I’m not saying that Foley doesn’t deserve what he got. But come on! If Hassert had known through proper channels what Foley was doing I have no doubt that Foley would have been out of there in a heart beat.
Nikolay
Did I understand your comment to mean that “now that it’s been claimed that it has to be un-proven. Isn’t the burden to prove that someone did something, not for him to prove he didn’t.
I think that’s the basis of our legal system. But then I may have misunderstood your comment.
Well Hastert was not in the leadership when these three pages were in DC anyway.
I am having a hard time believing that all this was going on for all this time and the press did not mention it? Why not? It is not as if they are that damn careful or anything. I saw the same kind of thing at the CNN website asking victims to call or email with stories and leads. I could not believe it
Hi My name is Tony and Foley grabbed my butt in the Congressional Office Building. Send money to ………..
And I have not heard anyone confirm Drudge’s story on the TV news either.
‘Truth is but a changing law’ (Pilate:Jesus Crist Superstar)
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
why did these three pages keep their IM messages from 4, 6 and 8 years
They were getting ready to release an album of their greatest hits?????
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