Never mind the abhorrent nature of the instant messages sent by
former Rep. Mark Foley to an as-yet-unnamed former
Congressional page. “It’s disgusting and the House Republican
leadership should call it what it is,” says a GOP House leadership
aide. “But this isn’t just about a f#$#$-up pervert. There are
political elements in this thing and Republicans are trying to get
their minds around them.”
For example, if this is the first “October surprise,” what more
is coming down the pike? And make no mistake, say Capitol Hill
insiders, the Foley mess is a political dirty trick.
As the days go by, the role of the group Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in the Foley scandal is coming into
focus. CREW, as the group likes to be called, is an organization
funded by billionaire George Soros, as well as
Daniel Berger, one of the Democrat Party’s most
prolific donors. Berger’s Philadelphia law firm, Berger &
Montague, is a well-known class action specialist, and Democrat
insiders say that Berger has fashioned himself as an “East Coast
Bill Lerach,” referring to the notorious class
action lawyer based in California.
Berger serves on the board of CREW, which has targeted
Republican officeholders and candidates challenging
Berger-supported Democrats, including retired Adm. Joseph
Sestak, who is challenging Rep. Curt
Weldon, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and
Robert Menendez (N.J.), Pennsylvania Gov.
Ed Rendell, and Pennsylvania Senate Democrat
candidate Bob Casey, Jr. Berger has maxed out his
contributions to all these candidates, as well as fundraised for
them. Berger is also a six-figure contributor to Americans Coming
Together, an organized-labor-backed Democrat 527, which coordinated
get out the vote activities with the DNC in 2004.
Another key figure is CREW’s executive director, Melanie
Sloan, who worked as a legal counsel to then-Senate
Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden and minority counsel
to ranking House Judiciary Democrat Rep. John
Conyers.
CREW FILED ETHICS COMPLAINTS in the Senate Ethics Committee against
Casey’s opponent, Rick Santorum, and has attacked
Weldon, listing him and Santorum on its “most corrupt” list. CREW
gained national attention when it was revealed that the group had
worked with former Texas Democrat House member Rep. Chris
Bell in filing a House ethics complaint against then-House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay. CREW also was involved
in the Jack Abramoff scandal, suing the Secret
Service for White House visitor logs, for example. And according to
Democrat insiders, it has spent a disproportionate amount of time
working as an opposition research organization for the Democrat
Party.
“We’ve been hearing about some kind of oppo effort for close to
six months, though there weren’t names attached,” says a House
Democrat leadership aide. “You socialize with political types off
the Hill and you’d hear rumblings that we were building up some
pretty explosive stuff for the fall, and you got the sense that
CREW was a big part of it.”
CREW has confirmed that it received some of the initial messages
between Foley and the unnamed page and forwarded it to the FBI on
July 21, 2006. At the same time, media outlets have claimed to have
received similar materials, but have not cited the sources. There
is widespread belief that CREW operatives, or those with outside
ties to CREW, were those sources. Other news outlets claim to have
seen some of the email traffic between Foley and the teenager as
early as last November.
AROUND THE SAME TIME THAT CREW was receiving the documents in
question, a blog, StopSexPredators went live on July 28th, exactly
one week after CREW received the materials, according to the blog’s
archives. No ownership or name is attached to the site, and it
appears to have gone dormant off and on, with only sporadic posting
since it initially went online.
“It would be interesting to see who is behind the site,” says an
RNC staffer familiar with opposition research techniques. “It
doesn’t smell quite right, and certainly the only reason for its
existence as far as I can tell is to push the Foley story.”
As with similar Democrat operations, Democrat leadership staff
on Capitol Hill say they believe that CREW has worked to coordinate
the Foley story with ABC News, forwarding tips and additional
information to the news organization.
“It wouldn’t be surprising; they have good relationships with
all of the media outlets going back to the DeLay matters,” says the
Democratic leadership source. “If I had an ethics story to push,
I’d go to them before I even went to my guys on the ethics
committee. I know I’d get something from them.”
REPUBLICANS FIND THEMSELVES in a terrible position, knowing that
Foley is getting everything he deserves, while attempting to
staunch the political damage Democrats are attempting to inflict on
them, knowing that blaming the messenger — the media — makes them
look petty. They also are concerned that more may be coming down
the pike.
“With a story like this that sucks the energy out of the base,
your concern is that it doesn’t keep snowballing, from one man
[Foley] to others,” says a former RNC staffer. “What I’m worried
about isn’t just Foley. I’m worried about the stories the
Democratic machine is going to be churning out for the next four
weeks.”
The issue of the base’s mindset is the really the big one on the
minds of Republicans. In the past two weeks, RNC officials had
noticed a marked up-tick in polling and enthusiasm for the election
throughout its base, something that had Democrats nervous. “We
thought our base was pretty energized, but with the stories
breaking that it appeared unlikely either house of Congress would
fall Democratic, you sensed the air coming out of the balloon,”
says a Democrat political consultant. “Now, that energy is back,
and you sense it just bleeding out of the
Republicans.”
And it isn’t like Republicans are helping matters. It is now
part of the MSM and blogosphere mantra that House Republican
leadership knew of the vile instant messages months ago, when in
fact there is currently no evidence to confirm it. “The level of
passing the buck isn’t surprising, but it’s still disappointing,”
says a Senate leadership aide looking across the Capitol. “Part of
it is out of survival mode, but throwing everyone under the bus
only encourages the media and the left to get louder. I don’t
recall anyone demanding Rep.Dick Gephardt resign
his post because of Mel Reynolds [an Illinois
congressman convicted in 1995 on 12 counts, including sexual
assault and solicitation of child pornography, and other crimes;
his sentence was later commuted by President Bill
Clinton]. Democrats tend to hang together better in these
kinds of cases. Why can’t Republicans learn their lesson?”
Some say it is because the Foley case hits so close to the
social conservative base. “We’d look like hypocrites if we did on
Foley what the Democrats did with Frank, Studds, Reynolds, and
Clinton,” says a House leadership aide. “But we need a cooling down
period, and we haven’t had that opportunity.”
Which comes back to where we started: the trickling out of the
IM messages, the timing of the leaks, and the organizations driving
the story in the media.
“There is no question that Foley had to resign. That there
should have been a formal ethics investigation and if laws were
broken a criminal investigation,” says a House GOP leadership aide.
“But this story should have played out in the middle of July if not
earlier, perhaps when Foley was being talked about as our guy to
challenge for the Republican Senate nomination. Instead, it happens
just when things are looking a bit better for our party. It’s
frustrating, but we’ve overcome this stuff before. Foley is gone.
For now, the question for Republicans across the country is this:
do you want Nancy Pelosi as House speaker, or
someone like Mike Pence? That’s where
conservatives should be focused.”
