FBI's Foley Case Eyes Legal 'Gray Area'

An unidentified U.S. Capitol Police officer changes the lock on one of the doors leading to the former office of former Rep.Mark Foley, R-Fla. House Republican leaders are facing questions of what, and when, they knew about the former GOP representative's inappropriate electronic communications with teenage males who had worked as pages. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke) (Lauren Victoria Burke - AP)

WASHINGTON -- Former Rep. Mark Foley's online conversations with teenage male pages have all the trappings of a political scandal, but making a federal case out of the sexually charged exchanges could prove difficult, veteran investigators say.

Foley, a six-term Republican from Florida, resigned abruptly as his e-mails and instant message transcripts surfaced. The chats discussed sexual acts and possible meetings with pages, according to ABC News, which first reported them last week.

Explicit computer chats with children were criminalized in 1996 when Congress, with Foley's help, passed the Communications Decency Act. But the Supreme Court struck it down, saying it violated the First Amendment right to free speech.

With the FBI investigating Foley's behavior, his defense attorney, David Roth, said that the congressman never had sex or attempted sexual contact with a minor. Foley, who is being treated for alcohol abuse, was drinking when he had the explicit conversations, Roth said.

"Any suggestion that Mark Foley is a pedophile is false," Roth said Tuesday at a news conference in West Palm Beach, Fla.

If Foley never had sex with a congressional page, then his case is in uncertain legal territory, said Ken Lanning, a retired FBI agent who served as one of the agency's leading experts on child exploitation.

"There are going to be some issues here in the gray area," Lanning said. "You may find this behavior repulsive, offensive or immoral. Whether it's a violation of law will be based on a precise reading of the law."

Congressional leaders, who called for an FBI investigation as Foley resigned, turned to finger-pointing over who knew what about Foley's behavior, when they knew it and whether anything was done to protect the teens.

One federal law enforcement official said the FBI reviewed some Foley-related e-mail in July but concluded that no federal law had been violated. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is active, said agents are reviewing new evidence, including the instant message transcripts, to see if a law was broken.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the agency is continuing its assessment.

In Florida, Roth said no law enforcement officials had contacted him. Foley has not been subpoenaed but voluntarily agreed not to delete any e-mails or instant messages from his computers, the lawyer said.

Some Democrats have claimed Foley might have violated the federal law used to prosecute Internet sex predators, but experts said it's not that simple.