By Charles Babington and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 2, 2006

The FBI announced last night that it is looking into whether former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) broke federal law by sending inappropriate e-mails and instant messages to teenage House pages.

The announcement came hours after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert asked for a Justice Department investigation into not only Foley's actions but also Congress's handling of the matter once it learned of the contacts.

In his letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Hastert (R-Ill.) acknowledged that some of Foley's most sexually explicit instant messages were sent to former House pages in 2003. That was two years before lawmakers say they learned of a more ambiguous 2005 e-mail that led only to a quiet warning to Foley to leave pages alone.

Foley, 52, abruptly resigned Friday, and Democrats have since been hammering Hastert and other GOP leaders. They have accused Republicans of covering up the matter and allowing Foley to remain as co-chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus instead of launching an inquiry and possibly uncovering the raunchier communications.

As the scandal broke, Hastert contended he learned of concerns about Foley only last week. But after Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.) said Saturday that he had notified Hastert months ago of Foley's e-mails to a 16-year-old boy, the speaker did not dispute his colleague, and Hastert's office acknowledged that some aides knew last year that Foley had been ordered to cease contact with the youth.

Republican leaders continued to insist yesterday that it was understandable that the "over-friendly" Internet e-mails they had seen did not set off alarm bells. But one House GOP leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, conceded that Republicans had erred in not notifying the three-member, bipartisan panel that oversees the page system. Instead, they left it to the panel chairman, Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.), to confront Foley.

Also yesterday, a former House page said that at a 2003 page reunion, he saw sexually suggestive e-mails Foley had sent to another former page. Patrick McDonald, 21, now a senior at Ohio State University, said he eventually learned of "three or four" pages from his 2001-2002 class who were sent such messages.

He said he remembered saying at the reunion, "If this gets out, it will destroy him."

House officials have already removed Foley's nameplate from his Cannon Office Building door and shut down his House Web site, while in Florida, GOP leaders prepared to meet at an Orlando airport hotel today to select a replacement candidate for the November election.

Foley has said nothing since announcing his resignation. Yesterday, a statement purportedly sent by Foley to news organizations, including The Washington Post, said he has entered an alcohol-treatment facility in Florida. The Post could not confirm the statement's authenticity, and none of Foley's former aides has responded to messages since his resignation.

In his letter to Gonzales, Hastert said Foley's electronic messages crossed state lines, so "there should be a complete investigation and prosecution of any federal laws that have been violated."

FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko declined to elaborate on his announcement of the agency's investigation of Foley. A law enforcement official who requested anonymity so he could discuss an ongoing case said the probe will be handled by the FBI's Cyber Division, and could involve agents from the Washington or Miami field offices.

Hastert also wrote that, because some of the more sexually explicit instant messages were written in 2003, "there should be an investigation into the extent there are persons who knew or had possession of these messages but did not report them to the appropriate authorities."

The speaker asked that the probe extend to "all individuals who may have been aware of this matter -- be they Members of Congress, employees of the House of Representatives, or anyone outside the Congress." He said that "no one in the House Leadership was aware, to my knowledge" of the explicit messages from 2003 until ABC News reported on them last week.

In one instant-message exchange with a high school boy, ABC News reported, Foley made repeated references to sex acts and body parts.

Former page Matthew Loraditch said yesterday that he has known for years about the "creepy" messages three 2002 classmates received from Foley. He said Foley sent them after the boys had finished the House program. Each began innocuously but took a turn in tone, said Loraditch, a senior at Towson University.

"They became explicit and similar to what we are seeing on the Web sites right now," said Loraditch, 21, who runs the U.S. House Page Alumni Association's Internet message board. Those who received them "didn't do anything beside telling other pages about it."

Foley was known as an exceedingly friendly House member to young pages, most of whom are 16- and 17-year-old high school juniors who come to Washington for an intensive, year-long civics lesson. Unlike most House members, he memorized their names and talked politics with them during lulls in late-night sessions. Foley was the only House member to attend the Class of 2002's graduation, according to McDonald, and he wore a tuxedo.

McDonald and Loraditch said they received no improper messages from Foley. Loraditch said he had viewed several "cut-and-paste excerpts" of messages Foley sent to one of the three. "Some went along with it, others cut it off," Loraditch said. "I'm pretty sure none met with him."

None of the three former pages is yet willing to step forward, according to McDonald and Loraditch.

Loraditch said no one wanted to report Foley for fear of damaging his job prospects.

"That's part of your concern about coming forward," Loraditch said. "You take down a Congress member, and you can't end up trying to do something later."

McDonald remembers Foley encouraging pages who expressed an interest in politics and inviting them to his district for his own campaigning. McDonald was so fond of Foley that he almost refused to believe the objectionable messages when he learned of them in 2003.

"There is a part of us that all want to be told lies," he said. "We want to be told, 'That's not true.' I wanted to believe that Foley was the guy we always knew he was: He just loved pages."

"This weekend," McDonald said, "there's no more lying to yourself."

Hastert's letter to Gonzales was the culmination of a day-long evolution of the Republican strategy toward dealing with the scandal.

On yesterday morning's "This Week" on ABC, White House counselor Dan Bartlett defended the House GOP leadership directing the investigation into how the scandal was handled.

"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," Bartlett said.

But by midday, on CNN's "Late Edition," Bartlett had joined calls by Democrats and some Republicans for a criminal investigation of the matter. "If you take the allegations at face value, I think there would have to be at least a preliminary look to see if there's any breaking of criminal law," he said.

Hours later, Hastert called for the Justice Department investigation.

The changes in course were in keeping with a Republican plan to stay ahead of Democratic attacks and to show a willingness to let impartial investigators pursue the matter. On Friday night, when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took the House floor to demand an investigation by the ethics committee, GOP leaders quickly agreed and the motion passed unanimously.

Yesterday, Democrats kept up the pressure. Pelosi applauded the FBI announcement and called on the Republican leadership to quickly investigate "the cover up of Mr. Foley's behavior."

And Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the allegations against Foley "are repugnant, but equally as bad is the possibility that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives knew there was a problem and ignored it to preserve a congressional seat this election year."

Staff writers Anne Hull and Dan Eggen, research editor Lucy Shackelford and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.