Fordham may testify as early as next week before the House Ethics panel.

[kpete]

Former Foley Aide Expecting to Testify Before House Panel


By CARL HULSE AND JEFF ZELENY
Published: October 8, 2006

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 — A former senior aide to Mark Foley expects to go before the House ethics committee next week and testify under oath that he alerted the speaker’s office as early as 2003 to inappropriate contact with teenage pages by Mr. Foley, his lawyer said Saturday.

The former aide, Kirk Fordham, will also tell the panel that Scott Palmer, the longtime chief of staff to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, later met with Mr. Foley to talk about his troubling interest in pages, though Mr. Fordham did not attend that meeting, said Timothy J. Heaphy, Mr. Fordham’s lawyer.

“He continues to stand by his claim that he alerted Scott Palmer to this incident with Foley, and he knows there was a subsequent meeting with Foley and Palmer,” said Mr. Heaphy, who contacted the ethics committee on Friday to offer Mr. Fordham as a witness. “Kirk is confident and ready to go under oath.”

Mr. Palmer has denied having such a discussion with Mr. Fordham, who was a top aide to Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican, until January 2004. The speaker’s office has said it had no inkling of Mr. Foley’s contact with pages until the family of a former page in Louisiana complained about a communication to their son from Mr. Foley in the fall of 2005.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/washington/08foley.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[joemurphy]

1. Nothing but good news for us. n/t

[RufusEarl]

2. Who are the democrats on the ethics panel?