Davis targets Foley cover-up

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A top House Republican said yesterday that anyone who participated in any cover-up of the Mark Foley page scandal should be removed from power.

"Anybody that hindered this in any kind of way [or was] covering it up, is going to have to step down," Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, Virginia Republican and chairman of the Government Reform Committee, said yesterday.

The House ethics committee is investigating the relationships that former Rep. Mark Foley, Florida Republican, had with teenage boys who had served as congressional pages. The panel also is investigating whether the House Republican leadership, which first heard complaints about Mr. Foley at least a year ago, acted quickly enough.

In an appearance yesterday on CBS' "Face the Nation," Mr. Davis, a former page himself, nevertheless said that calls for the resignation of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois were premature and that a Hastert resignation would drag out the Foley scandal and prevent the Republican Party from running on issues.

"I don't think that's going to satisfy the Democrats. I think it just keeps the feeding frenzy going," he said. "I think we just need to ... get this investigation over, let the chips fall where they may and get out, in the next 30 days and talk about the other issues that are important to the American people. And right now, there's no oxygen for those issues. And that's hurting Republicans."

Meanwhile yesterday, the scandal expanded with a Los Angeles Times report that a former page said he had sexual relations with Mr. Foley in 2000. According to the report, Mr. Foley's explicit e-mail overtures began shortly after the boy left the page program and culminated in the sexual encounter at Mr. Foley's Capitol Hill home after he'd turned 21.

The former page, whom the Times did not identify, said Mr. Foley assessed the sexuality, appearance and sexual attributes of the teenage pages but indicated that he waited until they left Capitol Hill to make direct advances. The paper reported that one instant message the former page received from Maf54, a screen name Mr. Foley used, read: "I always knew you were a player but I don't fool around with pages."

He said Mr. Foley's advances were widely known among former pages and many were surprised it took so long for him "to get caught."

Among those Republicans already ensnared in the scandal is Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, who backed out of a scheduled appearance yesterday on ABC's "This Week." Mr. Reynolds, according to his office, had "flulike symptoms."

Mr. Reynolds first learned of complaints against Mr. Foley last year and says he reported them to Mr. Hastert. He began an ad campaign over the weekend in which he apologizes for not acting more aggressively on the matter.