Mark Foley scandal

The Mark Foley scandal, which broke in late September 2006, centers on soliciting emails and sexually suggestive instant messages sent by Mark Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida, to teenaged boys who had formerly served as congressional pages. Investigation was closed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) on September 19, 2008 citing insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges as both "Congress and Mr. Foley denied us access to critical data," said FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey. The scandal grew to encompass the response of Republican congressional leaders to previous complaints about Foley's contacts with the pages and inconsistencies in the leaders' public statements. There were also allegations that a second Republican congressman, Jim Kolbe, had improper conduct with at least two youths, a 16-year-old page and a recently graduated page.

The scandal led to Foley's resignation from Congress on September 29, 2006. In some quarters, the scandal is believed to have contributed to the Republican Party's loss of control over Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, as well as the end of House Speaker Dennis Hastert's leadership of the House Republicans. Kirk Fordham, chief of staff to Rep. Tom Reynolds and former chief of staff for Foley, also resigned as a result of the scandal.

Newsweek's June 7, 2010, issue's Back Story listed Foley, among others, as a prominent conservative politician who had a record of anti-gay legislation and was later caught in a gay sex scandal.

The questionable conversations, which took place between 1995 and 2005, were investigated by the FBI for possible criminal violations. In September 2008, Florida officials investigating Foley decided not to charge him, citing a lack of evidence and the expiration of the statute of limitations. The House Ethics Committee investigated the response of the House Republican leadership and their staff to earlier warnings about Foley's conduct. In early October 2006, two news organizations anonymously quoted former pages who said that they had sexual liaisons with Foley after turning 18 and 21. Foley was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, which introduced legislation targeting sexual predators and created stricter guidelines for tracking them.

In 2005, Foley sent five emails to a 16-year-old former page from Monroe, Louisiana who had been sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander (R–LA). They were the first messages to be made public in the scandal. Among other things, Foley asked for a photo of the page, his age and birthday, and what he wanted for a birthday present. Foley observed that another male page (to whom he had also written) was "in really great shape ... i am just finished riding my bike on a 25 mile journey ..." The page forwarded the e-mails to a colleague in Alexander's office, saying "this really freaked me out", and repeating the word "sick" 13 times in a row to describe the photo request. The page asked "if you can, please tell Rodney [Alexander] about this", and in addition, mentioned a female page who had been warned about a congressman who "hit on" interns.

ABC News reported on October 5 that in 2002, Foley e-mailed one page with an invitation to stay at the congressman's home in exchange for oral sex. The page, who was 17 years-old at the time, declined the offer. The same report stated that he e-mailed another with a request for a photograph of his erect penis. Another former page reported that he saw sexually explicit e-mails sent to one page from his page class of 2001–2002, and learned of "three or four" pages from that class who received similar e-mails.

After the initial story on the emails, other pages contacted ABC and The Washington Post, providing transcripts of sexually explicit instant messaging (IM) conversations from 2003 that Foley had with two pages who were under the age of 18 at the time. The Washington Post reported it had received its copies of the same IMs from a page who had served on Capitol Hill with the two pages to whom they had been addressed.

Another former page, Tyson Vivyan, said that he had received "sexually suggestive" messages from Foley in 1997, a month after he left the page program. A page from the class of 1998 also reported receiving explicit IMs from Foley. A page from the class of 2000 reported he chatted with Foley during the Congressman's 2000 visit to the page dormitory, and afterwards, he began receiving e-mails and IMs from Foley, which became explicit immediately after his 18th birthday.