House speaker dismisses call to resign

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert brushed aside resignation talk Tuesday, even as the Republicans' No. 2 House leader contradicted him in the page scandal. President Bush gave Hastert a vote of confidence as the party struggled to contain pre-election fallout.

Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said he wouldn't resign as speaker, the top official in Congress and second in the line of succession to the presidency, in the controversy over Rep. Mark Foley's salacious computer exchanges with former pages. Foley resigned last Friday.

"I'm not going to do that," Hastert said when asked by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh whether he would resign.

Hastert sought to blame Democrats for leaking sexually explicit computer instant messages between Foley and former pages from 2003.

"It's absolutely not true," said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Roth said Foley, 52, had himself been molested between the ages of 13 and 15 by a clergyman but added that Foley had never had sexual contact with a minor. He said Foley, who had kept his sexual orientation private, wanted people now to know that he is gay.

The House ethics committee, meanwhile, scheduled 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.

The Arlington Group, a coalition of 70 conservative groups, said, "We are very concerned that the whole truth concerning this episode be reported, including when House leadership or other members from either party knew of this situation."

Boehner and Reynolds said that while they learned of overly friendly e-mails from Foley to the one Louisiana page this spring, they had no idea that the congressman had sent other, sexually explicit messages, to additional pages.

Neither lawmaker said they read the 2005 message from Foley, described as "sick" by the boy. The message asked for a photograph and mentioned a different teen who was in "great shape."

Foley had been originally confronted in the fall of 2005 about his communications with the one page. According to a weekend statement issued by Hastert's office, Page Board Chairman John Shimkus, R-Ill., and the House clerk met with the Florida lawmaker and told him to "immediately cease any communication" with the page.

Unlike GOP leaders Reynolds and Boehner, Shimkus read the 2005 e-mail.

The FBI announced over the weekend it was opening a preliminary investigation into the matter, but that, like much else, was a matter of confusion.

One law enforcement official said the FBI originally was given some Foley-related e-mail correspondence in July, but concluded that no federal law had been violated.

The agency reopened its preliminary investigation Sunday.

Separately, Kirk Fordham, a Reynolds aide who was a longtime former aide to Foley, told The Associated Press of counseling Foley on Friday on how to deal with the developing story.

Fordham said when he learned the details of some of the instant messages, he confronted Foley.

"I said: 'Are these authentic?' and he said 'probably' and he confirmed that they were likely his instant messages," Fordham said.

Reynolds immediately said Foley had to resign and GOP campaign aides drafted a resignation letter.

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Associated Press writers David Espo and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report.