Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. a conservative congressman known for his frequent support of anti-porn legislation, resigned from his office today after congressional pages came forward with copies of instant messages of a sexual nature allegedly written by Foley to teenage boys, according to ABCNEWS.com.
Using the AOL screen name Maf54, Foley allegedly sent instant message communications to an unknown number of current and former congressional pages, all of whom are reportedly under the age of 18, that allegedly contained references to sexual acts and organs.
Congressional pages are high school juniors who serve as messengers and perform administrative tasks for Congress. Pages must be at least 16-years-old.
Foley turned in his resignation letter this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert just hours after ABCNEWS.com confronted him with copies of the instant messages in question.
“As of now, he has done the right thing,” commented Hastert at a press conference regarding Foley’s resignation. “None of us are very happy about this.”
Hastert has asked Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., the head of the page board, to look into the allegations regarding Foley. “We want to make sure all of our pages our safe and that our page system is safe,” Hasterst said.
In one of the instant messages attributed to Foley that were provided to ABC, someone using the Maf54 handle has a lengthy and graphic conversation with a high school boy about masturbation, asking the unidentified boy where he masturbates, what position he masturbates in, where he ejaculates and his penis size. At one point, Maf54 writes that he’d love to remove the boy’s clothes “ and gram [sic] the one-eyed snake.”
In a statement issued by his office concerning the resignation, Foley apologized “for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent,” but did not explain the reasons behind the move.
The pages provided ABCNEWS.com with the instant messages following a report by the news organization on the existence of a series of emails Foley sent a 16-year-old boy, who had met Foley while serving as a page for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., in 2005.
The emails, which were sent in the summer of 2005, have been circulating the Internet for a few days now, but it is not clear who released them to the general public.
“Maybe this is just me being paranoid but seriously. This freaked me out,” the page wrote when forwarding the emails in question to a staffer for Alexander. While the emails are not blatantly sexual in nature but did contain a request for a picture and several personal questions that the boy indicated he felt were inappropriate.
Foley, a twelve-year veteran of Congress who was virtually guaranteed re-election this year before today’s announcement, has presumably withdrawn his candidacy just 39 days before the election.
