Feds Investegating Kolbe Trip With Pages

[Teller]

Partisanship has no bounds I see. You guys don't find it the least bit odd that these old men are wining and dining kids? Seems the congressman was providing every opportunity to "get to know them better" without overtly hitting on them.

Let me ask you this, if your "friend" is deliberately trying to flirt with your gf but nothing happens is he innocent? Not in my book.

So using your logic, every Boy Scout leader should be in jail. Brilliant.

[Thiebear]

Chomerics spends hours defending Reid on a technicality that he admits looks bad. Then runs with this like it was on fire....

fair & balanced...

[chomerics]

Uh, I wasn't talking about Foley. Foley should be hung out to dry, and any GOPers who knew what was going on and sat on their hands should resign. But you are putting in a red herring here (or else you didn't read the thread and just assumed the person in question was Foley). We're talking about someone else entirely (Kolbe), who did none of those things. Read the story - there's no evidence at all, except one person whose memory of things ten years past is essentially that the congressman patted one guy on the back too often, something which the supposed victim himself disputes. I don't see how ANY rational person can equate this with getting drunk and trying to slip into someone's room, or sending them perverted text messages. Who's being partisan now?

You are missing the point, it wasn;t about the trip, but that the FBI was investegting him!!!

Maybe nothing comes up from the investegation, but when a congressman is caught soliciting sex from a page, and THEN it is found the the FBI is investegating another congressman for taking pages on trips, it is news!!!

Debate the topic at hand, and maybe it is nothing, but it is news, no if's and's or but's about it.

[chomerics]

Chomerics spends hours defending Reid on a technicality that he admits looks bad. Then runs with this like it was on fire....

fair & balanced...

No, I said it should be discussed without giving my thoughts one way or another. . . It is news whether you like it or not. . .

[Riggo-toni]

You are missing the point, it wasn;t about the trip, but that the FBI was investegting him!!!

NO NO NO. Read the fine print - It did NOT say they were investigating him - it said they were making a "preliminary assessment." This isn't going to make it into the investigation phase. This one is pure political smear.

[twa]

Politics is such a bizarre world--innappropriate behavior, be it on the part of a D or an R, generally doesn't get noticed until there's some sensational story or potential voting swing as a result of it. I guess that's how the political markets stay efficient: i.e., voting cycles requiring exposes for poll swings--and it reflects that polls and voting actually do matter, which is certainly important.

I guess I just wonder how much else we don't know that is only revealed because of a coming election...ultimately, it's probably better that it's revealed at some point than not revealed at all, right?

Yep,politics gets wierd when the right is defending a gay Rep the Dems are attacking. :laugh:

Congress actually honored Studds (who was guilty of improper behavior with a page) by naming a marine sanctuary after him

[Redskins Diehard]

And no, the kid did not say he wasn't bothered by anyone. Who are you calling, stupid, einstein? The other page said that, the allegedly touched page just said he liked Kolbe and refused to comment further for fear of ruining his chances of landing a GOP job.

And since you seem to need the laborious explanation:

- Witness says Kolbe touched the kid a bit too intimately.

- Kid refuses to discuss whether Kolbe touched him because he's afraid the Republicans will be mad at his answers.

- Kid says he 'likes' Kolbe.

I don't know what did or did not happen there. But if you can't see the possibility of the kid avoiding self-incrimination, it ain't me that's stupid.

In any event. if nothing happened, wouldn't this boy would have simply said so, just like the other page did.

And to dramatize my point that selective quotes can be misleading, allow me to quote from Redskins Diehard: :laugh: :laugh:

I said I told the "rest" of the story.

"NBC also interviewed the two former pages, who are now in their late 20s. One of them said that Kolbe was a gentleman and never acted in an improper fashion. He recalled that the pair spent time in Kolbe's house at one point — and briefly were alone with him on the trip — and that Kolbe always acted professionally and decently.

The other would not comment on Kolbe's behavior during the trip or characterize it in any way.

"I don't want to get into the details," he said. "I just don't want to get into this... because I might possibly be considered for a job in the administration."

However, the former page — who is the one to whom Kolbe allegedly paid special attention — said he had a "blast" on the trip and did not report anything improper to his parents or any House officials after the trip. He said he has a favorable impression of the page program to this day and likes Kolbe. "

Of course it does not say anything about "Republicans will be mad at the answers.

Your "selected quote" is befitting of a person of your apparent intellect. That is to say, none. And we still are not sure if you know what the Fifth Amendment does and why one would "take it" as you say.

[Thiebear]

No, I said it should be discussed without giving my thoughts one way or another. . . It is news whether you like it or not. . .

1. You said: And the cards start to crumble. . .

2. The U.S. Attorney is looking into it, the FBI "might" based on whatever....

It was important enough for you to START the thread on it.. obviously thinking "AHHA"...

3. Please try again.

[JimboDaMan]

That's wonderful that you figured out how to make the print big and bold. Next, we'll work on reading the two paragraphs preceeding the big-and-bold. Then we'll work on comprehension, where the kid said he enjoyed the trip but would not discuss Kolbe's behavior. Maybe I should put those last words in big bold print so we can all understand them.

[Redskins Diehard]

That's wonderful that you figured out how to make the print big and bold. Next, we'll work on reading the two paragraphs preceeding the big-and-bold. Then we'll work on comprehension, where the kid said he enjoyed the trip but would not discuss Kolbe's behavior. Maybe I should put those last words in big bold print so we can all understand them.

NM...not worth my time. Carry on.

[JimboDaMan]

The fifth amendment comment is irrelevant to anything on this thread. You seem fixated on it, presumably because ya got nothing else. But, go back and re-read my posts. If you still don't understand the comment then by all means you have my permission to decide that I'm the foolish one.

edit - I see you removed those comments - perhaps there's yet some hope...

[chomerics]

So for all the ney sayers, it appears that the story DID have merit. Anyone care to fess up?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101700139_pf.html

The House committee looking into allegations that former congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.) had improper contact with male former pages has been asked by lawmakers overseeing the page program to look into allegations involving a second lawmaker, House sources said yesterday.

Members of the Page Board sought the review after news reports last week that the Justice Department had opened a preliminary inquiry into a camping trip that Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) took with male former pages in 1996. That report sparked a conference call Monday among board members.

But because the Page Board, which consists of three House members and two senior House officials, does not have the authority to investigate members of Congress, the matter was turned over to the House ethics committee, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

"It was about other allegations and I'd like to leave it at that," Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.), a member of the Page Board, told reporters Monday as he exited a closed-door meeting of the ethics panel. "Let me just say" that the allegations are "not about Mr. Foley," he said. "It's only been allegations."

It was not clear what allegations the board was concerned about. But The Washington Post has learned of a potentially inappropriate incident involving Kolbe and a male page. The man recently told the House clerk's office and the FBI about an encounter with the Arizona Republican that occurred about five years ago when he was 16, according to someone familiar with the man's account. The page told authorities that he was "uncomfortable with a particular social encounter" that involved physical contact when he and Kolbe were alone, the source said yesterday.

The incident was not reported at the time, said the source, who emphasized that the encounter was based on the perception of a teenager five years ago.

A number of concerns about alleged improprieties in page matters have been referred to the committee since Foley abruptly resigned from the House on Sept. 29 after ABC News asked him about salacious instant messages he had sent to a former page, House leadership aides said. But such concerns so far have involved allegations that Foley's actions had been covered up or improperly handled, not that other House members have possibly engaged in inappropriate behavior.

"I haven't been contacted by anyone on this matter but if I am, I will fully cooperate with the appropriate authorities," Kolbe said in a statement last night.

Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican in Congress, will retire this year. He was a Senate page for three years.

Kolbe has said that he was aware in 2000 or 2001 of inappropriate e-mails that Foley had sent to one of his pages. Kolbe has said that he did not see the messages and was not told that they were sexually explicit. But a source with direct knowledge of the matter has disputed Kolbe's assertions.

Numerous pages have said that Kolbe kept in close contact with them during their time on Capitol Hill, and in some cases, after their service. Most of those pages said they viewed the congressman as a friend of the page program, and some considered him a mentor.

And Kolbe was known to be friendly with pages, sometimes joking with them in the cloakroom and corridors of the Capitol.

"Both Congressman Kolbe and Foley were known as friends of pages and really mentored the pages," said Billy Peard, a former page. Matt Schmitz, another former page, said he cautioned his younger brother, who also was a page, not to get too close to members of Congress.

Several pages said that Kolbe regularly offered up a dinner at his home for bids at the annual page auction, which raised money for charity and for the page prom. In 2002, a group paid $210 for the Kolbe dinner. Kolbe picked up the group at the page dorm and drove to his house on East Capitol Street.

After dinner, the guests talked about the history and beauty of the house and Kolbe made them an offer, according to one page in the 2002-2003 class who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Kolbe said the pages were "free to stay here" if any of them were ever back in town after the program ended, the former page said.

The former page said he did not consider the comment to be "a red flag. It was a personal decision not to go back" to Kolbe's house "without a friend or two."

The invitation emerged in an instant-message exchange between one former page and Foley, in which Foley seemed to be jealous of Kolbe. In January 2003, that former page, Jordan Edmund, told Foley that he and three other former pages had been invited to sleep at Kolbe's house during a one-year reunion of their page class.

The event that captured the Page Board's attention was a camping trip that Kolbe took with two former pages and others in 1996, an outing first reported by NBC News and now under review by the Justice Department. One law enforcement official cautioned that the inquiry is based on allegations from an unidentified source that have not been substantiated. The allegations involve Kolbe's behavior toward one of the former pages, the official said.

The three-day trip down the Grand Canyon also included several Kolbe staff members; Kolbe's sister, Beth; and National Park Service employees, Kolbe spokeswoman Korenna Cline said last week. She denied any improprieties had occurred.

The ethics committee has moved expeditiously through its Foley investigation, taking testimony from Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, who told the panel last week that he brought Foley's behavior to the attention of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff in 2003. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) is expected to testify this week about his contention that he alerted Hastert this spring about Foley's conduct.

Tomorrow, former House clerk Jeff Trandahl -- perhaps the most important witness -- will appear before the committee. Trandahl should know about suspect e-mails that were referred to him as far back as 2000, about repeated efforts that Fordham said Trandahl had made to raise alarm about Foley's behavior, and about his own confrontation with Foley last November, just before Trandahl's abrupt departure from the House, sources said.

Meanwhile, Foley's attorney said in Miami that the former congressman will identify the Roman Catholic priest who he says sexually abused him as a young boy as part of Foley's "healing process."

Gerald Richman said Foley will identify the man to the Archdiocese of Miami so the church "can then deal appropriately with the issue," according to Reuters.

Soon after Foley's resignation, his attorneys confirmed that Foley is gay and said that he had been sexually abused by a priest while he was growing up in Florida.

[Redskins Diehard]

Yeah, that is the same claim with the same amount of verification that the last article you posted had. There is nothing new here. When the investigation comes back and says there was something then that will be news.

Let me guess, you are really wishing you signed up for the page program.

[Hooper]

It's pretty bizarre how many closeted homosexuals there are in the GOP. I mean, come out already -- it's 2006.