Word: hastert
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...Will the Foley Scandal Bring Down Hastert? The Speaker is well-liked by his colleagues, but as Republicans are passing the blame upwards, he's as far up as they...
...Twenty-three years and another sex scandal later, it's House Speaker Dennis Hastert's turn to scrutinize the page program. Facing growing criticism over his handling of the scandal, Hastert announced Thursday that he is launching an investigation to evaluate and make improvements to the program. "We will do everything possible to make the program safe for the kids while they are in our care in Washington, D.C., and to make sure we can be a resource for their parents once they return home," Hastert said at a press conference outside his office in Batavia, Ill., where he explained...
...been named to lead the investigation, though Louis Freeh, the former FBI director, was Hastert's potential pick. Before Thursday's press conference, Hastert called House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to say that he was planning to name Freeh. Pelosi objected, telling Hastert, "We need to talk about this and we need to work in a bipartisan way," according to her press secretary, Brendan Daly. Hastert subsequently did not name Freeh at his press conference...
...Hastert's announcement of the investigation comes three days after Representative Ray LaHood, a fellow Illinois Republican and friend of Hastert, called for the page program to be temporarily suspendend. "This is a flawed program," LaHood told TIME. "The fact that a member of Congress is sending e-mails to a page and that he can get away with it [shows that] obviously there are problems." Two more Republican representatives, Jon Porter of Nevada and Kay Granger of Texas, also supported LaHood's reccommendation to suspend the page program until an outside team could evaluate its security protocol...
...Meanwhile the Office of the Clerk, which runs the House page program, has established a toll-free hotline for current or former pages - and their parents - to report any tips related to Mark Foley or to the page program. The hotline is Hastert's own doing. "As the Speaker, I take responsibility for everything in the building," he said in a statement Thursday morning. "The buck stops here. The safety and security of the students in the page program is imperative...