Happened to be one of those rare days when I am in the car when Rush is on and saying something of interest to me (you would be surprised how rare that actually is!) and he asked if the Foley story would have legs. If it is about Foley and Hastert – no. But if it is about who in the Democrat party held the information that would indicate Foley was possible sexual predator of pages the story will stay in the news. I have deduced that the leak about Foley and his overtures to the Lousianna Page – which ignited the story and resulted in the other leads which have clearly caused concern about Foley’s activities with Pages as they graduated out of the program – occurred some time between Oct 17 and November 30th, 2005.

In addition, we know the leak and subsequent shopping of the emails was not done by the same person. The emails in question appear to have been between the LA Page and Danielle Savoy in Rep Alexander’s office. There are some who claim the source of the emails was a Rep. But these same claims say a ‘man’ was shopping these email around the newsmedia from November of 2005 through July, and possibly into August, of 2006. The reporting has it the source of the leaks was Rep Alexander’s staff (or maybe former staff, as we shall learn in a moment.

For all of this time the ‘man’ apparently never informed authorities that Foley was a threat to Pages and recently graduated Pages. It was not until CREW notified the FBI in July of 2006 that anyone attempted to raise a red flag, but the CREW versions of the emails were so heavily redacted the FBI could not do much with them.

Today we have reporting from The Prowler at American Spectator from two DNC sources confirming there was a plot to withhold this information from the public and law enforcement in order to use it for partisan gain!:

According to one political consultant with ties to the DNC and other party organizations, “I’m hearing the Foley story wasn’t supposed to drop until about ten days out of the election. It was supposed the coup de grace, not the first shot.”

What this DNC source is saying is the Democrats and CREW were supposed to conceal the Foley risk even longer than they did! This means the Dems were going to allow Foley to continue his efforts to prey on young men so that they could have an election year scandal to sweep them into office. As I have said many times, if the Dems were ever caught hiding these warning signs about Foley they would be as guilty as Foley in terms of risking the kids. Foley was preying on these kids for personal pleasure, the Dems were clearly allowing Foley to prey on these kids for personal/partisan gain! Both were exploiting these kids for selfish and selve serving reasons. The Dems may call Hastert negligent, but clearly the Dems KNEW what they were doing when they decided top exploit them.

“Republicans had to have known we’d be looking to change the national debate,” says a House Democrat leadership aide. “You had our leadership looking at cratering polling numbers. A majority within grasp wasn’t drifting away, it was being yanked back by Republicans. I wouldn’t be surprised if Foley had to be bumped up on the scandal schedule. That makes a lot of sense given where we were two weeks ago, and where we are now.”

This seems to be a bit of crowing by the Dem leadership aide about how well their efforts worked, even though they had to pull the trigger on the Foley scandal sooner than they wanted to. So who was this leadership aide? Well, Gateway Pundit has a lead on who that might be – and possible connection to the leak itself and who shopped it to the media for nearly a year – courtesy Erik at Redstate:

In August of 2004, Rodney Alexander’s Chief of Staff, Brian Smoot, and five other staffers abruptly quit because Alexander switched to the GOP. National Journal reported on August 13, 2004, that the Chief of Staff “sharply criticized Alexander for switching parties.” The Chief of Staff and five staffers were promptly hired by minority leader Nancy Pelosi.

So we have a Dem leadership aide who also has contacts inside Alexander’s office. Coincidnce? Is this why Pelosi refused to testify under oath or on a polygraph? Gateway Pundit also has information on Harper’s Magazine having this information for over a year since May of 2006! Clearly the effort was not to protect the kids in the Page program, or just coming out of the program this summer, but to use their exposure to a sexual predator as partisan scandal for electorial gains. Pathetic.

Major Update: Harper’s confirms that a Democrat operative was shopping the story in May (same time CREW got the story) and NOT attempting to alert authorities in order to protect the kids:

Last May, a source put me in touch with a Democratic operative who provided me with the now-infamous emails that Foley had sent in 2004 to a sixteen-year-old page. He also provided several emails that the page sent to the office of Congressman Rodney Alexander, a Louisiana Republican who had sponsored him when he worked on Capitol Hill. “Maybe it is just me being paranoid, but seriously, This freaked me out,” the page wrote in one email. In the fall of 2005, my source had provided the same material to the St. Petersburg Times—and I presume to The Miami Herald—both which decided against publishing stories.

It was a Democrat who brought me the emails, but comments he made and common sense strongly suggest they were originally leaked by a Republican office. And while it’s entirely possible that Democratic officials became aware of the accusations against Foley, the source was not working in concert with the national Democratic Party. Last May, a source put me in touch with a Democratic operative who provided me with the now-infamous emails that Foley had sent in 2004 to a sixteen-year-old page. He also provided several emails that the page sent to the office of Congressman Rodney Alexander, a Louisiana Republican who had sponsored him when he worked on Capitol Hill. “Maybe it is just me being paranoid, but seriously, This freaked me out,” the page wrote in one email. In the fall of 2005, my source had provided the same material to the St. Petersburg Times—and I presume to The Miami Herald—both which decided against publishing stories.

It was a Democrat who brought me the emails, but comments he made and common sense strongly suggest they were originally leaked by a Republican office. And while it’s entirely possible that Democratic officials became aware of the accusations against Foley, the source was not working in concert with the national Democratic Party.

Harpers has got to be kidding! The operative was disgusted and concerned but never once sent the info authorities? If this story had broken then the leads that came in later that filled in the picture of Foley targetting kids in the Page program for later contact would have come much earlier. But that would have made the news of minimal value to the Dems. So they held it and kept trying to shop it. The fact they tried to shop it is not a sign of their good intent. In fact, it is a signal of a ‘test run’. To see what would have to be part of the story to make it actionable by the press. Or, if the early versions were incomplete or sanitized, it could have been the simple act of establishing an alibi – a cover story. We would have to see what was shopped at each phase to see if everyone got EXACTLY the same information.

So I say Harpers and Aravosis and the St Peterburg Time all do what CREW and ABC News did and publish what they were provided. We the people can then decide if there was an honest effort on the part of the dems. The fact CREW contacted the FBI, with incomplete information, is not an indication the Dems and their media allies were hitting the signal flares! Sorry, but dems could have alerted authorities at any point in time if this was such a driving concern.

Update:Another item in the Harper’s article is somehow they had a version or access that gave them insight into who the LA Page was:

I tried to contact the page who received Foley’s emails and the boy’s parents, but got no reply to my inquiries.

Right there we have some interesting questions. We know the ABC News versions of the Savoy emails and Savoy’s name (and led straight to Rep Alexander’s office. The CREW version possibly had this information redacted. But with the knowledge of which Rep office was getting the complaint it would be trivial to track down which Pages were from that district (the Page program is just not that large in any given year). Given Rep Alexander’s efforts to protect the identity of the Page I find it hard to believe they wanted these emails out in a form that could ID the specific district.