Despite Pressure, Hastert Won't Resign

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., left, and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who chairs the panel of lawmakers that oversees the House page program, speak to reporters Monday, Oct. 2, 2006, on Capitol Hill in Washington, about former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., sending lurid Internet exchanges to pages. Hastert described instant messages that Foley sent to a former page in 2003 as "vile and repulsive." (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke) (Lauren Victoria Burke - AP)

The House ethcis committee, meanwhile, scheuled its first meeting on Foley's actions for Thursday, in closed session. The House voted last Friday to direct the ethics panel to inquire into the matter.

Hastert told reporters on Monday that he was not aware of the complaint against Foley until last Friday. He acknowledged his staff was made aware of it last fall, but he said there was "no reason to bump it up to me at that time."

However, both Majority Leader John Boehner and New York Rep. Tom Reynolds, who heads the House Republicans' re-election campaign, said they had spoken with Hastert about a complaint concerning a former page from Louisiana last spring after being hold about it by Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who had sponsored the teen.

"I believe I talked to the speaker and he told me it had been taken care of," Boehner said in an interview Tuesday on radio station WLW in Cincinnati. "My position is it's in his corner, it's his responsibility."

Reynolds insisted several times in a Monday night news conference in his Buffalo-area district that "I took it to the speaker" this spring when Alexander also mentioned the inappropriate e-mail to him.

Foley, R-Fla., resigned abruptly on Friday after being confronted with the 2003 instant message exchanges. He has since checked into an alcohol rehabilitation program at an undisclosed location.

His departure left behind a trail of questions concerning the e-mails and instant messages he had sent pages over an extended period of time. Beyond the details of his actions, Republican leaders fear the impact on the Nov. 7 elections, and the possible loss of their House majority.

Bush weighed in for the first time Tuesday. Speaking at a Stockton, Calif., elementary school, he said he was disgusted by the Foley revelations and voiced support for Hastert.

"I know that he wants all the facts to come out," the president said.

Meanwhile, The Washington Times, a newspaper with a consistently conservative editorial page, called for Hastert's resignation Tuesday, saying he was either grossly negligent "or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away."

Conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie kept up the drumbeat from the right, calling for Hastert to step down. "The fact that they just walked away from this, it sounds like they were trying to protect one of their own members rather than these young boys," Viguerie said on Fox News' "Studio B."

But the Christian Coalition weighed in with a letter saying the organization "stands behind" Hastert.