By Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 12, 2006; 2:36 PM
House Ethics Committee investigators Thursday began questioning Kirk Fordham, the ex-chief of staff for former representative Mark Foley, who is expected to testify that he alerted a senior member of Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's staff to Foley's behavior toward teenage male congressional pages in 2003.
Fordham, who arrived with his lawyer, made no comment as the two entered the closed-door session. A source with knowledge of the events said Fordham will detail repeated efforts to raise alarms about Foley's interest in young pages, often communicated in explicit computer messages, and his confrontations with Foley.
Earlier in the day, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who is on the Page Board that oversees the teenagers, testified for a little over an hour.
"I'm a member of the Page Board who was not informed of the e-mail messages that were sent," Capito said after the closed session, according to the Associated Press. "I want the investigation to go forth quickly and reach a conclusion." Capito's Democratic opponent had earlier accused her of failing to protect the high schoolers in the page program.
With Hastert denying personal knowledge of Foley's activities, investigators from the committee are bearing down on three senior members of Hastert's staff to determine when they learned of Foley's actions and whether they passed on their knowledge to the speaker.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200561_pf.html
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