Prometheus 6

Oh, I thought I was done with Hastert and Foley, but that one word...

Former Clerk Tells Panel He Alerted Speaker’s Office to Foley Concerns
By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — Jeff Trandahl, the former House clerk who supervised the Congressional page program, testified Thursday before the House ethics committee that he had periodically advised senior Republican leadership aides of complaints about Representative Mark Foley’s behavior on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Trandahl, whose account is seen by investigators as crucial to determining whether Speaker J. Dennis Hastert knew about Mr. Foley’s conduct, took questions for four hours in a closed session. He declined to comment as he left the Capitol, but people familiar with his testimony said Mr. Trandahl recounted how he informed the speaker’s office about concerns that Mr. Foley was spending too much time with young pages.

Mr. Foley, Republican of Florida, resigned last month after news reports about his exchange of sexually suggestive e-mail and instant messages with pages. “Jeff Trandahl has cooperated fully with the investigation being conducted by the F.B.I. and the investigative group of the Committee on Standards,” his lawyer, Cono Namorato, said in a statement. “He answered every question asked of him, and stands ready to render additional assistance if needed.”

John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the House majority leader, also testified Thursday before the ethics committee. After more than an hour of questioning, Mr. Boehner emerged to say that he stood by his account that he had told Mr. Hastert about overly friendly e-mail messages Mr. Foley had sent a former male page.

“I’ve made clear on the record what I knew and when I knew it,” Mr. Boehner told reporters. “I told the ethics committee the same thing I’ve said on the record for many of you. It was very thorough, and I was very forthcoming.”