US House panel finds Republicans negligent in scandal

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) Top Republicans were negligent in failing to protect teen-age interns from a lawmaker who resigned in an Internet sex scandal shortly before the November 7 elections, a congressional ethics panel concluded.

But in drawing the ire of a leading public interest group, the bipartisan panel said it found no violation of the House of Representatives ethics rules.

In a toughly word report that meted out no punishment, the panel said yesterday it found that senior Republican lawmakers and staff inadequately responded to warnings, some as long as a decade ago, about former Rep Mark Foley, a Florida Republican.

It also said two Democratic aides had copies of some of Foley's troublesome e-mails to interns late last year, and one of the aides leaked them to a number of print publications.

Foley, a six-term lawmaker, resigned from the House on September. 29 after ABC News disclosed that he had sent sexually explicit electronic messages to former teen-age male interns, known as congressional pages.

The revelations triggered charges that Republicans had tried to cover up the matter, and it likely helped Democrats win control of Congress in last month's elections.

In its report, the ethics panel wrote: ''Failure to exhaust all reasonable efforts to call attention to potential misconduct ... is not merely the exercise of poor judgment; it is a present danger to House pages and to the integrity of the institution of the House.'' HASTERT EMBRACES REPORT House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican who survived calls in October that he step down in wake of the scandal, embraced the report.

''I asked the committee to do this tough job promptly, and they have,'' Hastert said in a statement. ''I am glad the committee made clear that there was no violation of any House rules by any member or staff.'' With Democrats taking control of the new 110th Congress set to convene on January. 4, Hastert will no longer be speaker.

Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook ripped the ethics panel.

''While the committee's investigation makes clear that no one alerted either the (page) board or the ethics committee of concerns about Rep Foley's advances to pages, the report lets all of those investigated off the hook for this utter abdication of their duty,'' Claybrook said.

The panel said it found that many people on and off Capitol Hill knew about Foley's e-mails, including members of the media. It said the communications directors for the House Democratic caucus and campaign committee had copies of some of his electronic messages last year.

A Pelosi spokeswoman said she was unaware until after the probe that the communications directors had copies.

Republican Rep Tom Reynolds of New York said earlier he had warned Hastert about Foley last spring, telling him about an ''overly friendly'' e-mail to a former intern.

Hastert said he did not recall the conversation or another with House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio. Hastert also maintained he had no knowledge of the sexually explicit e-mails until they were disclosed in September.

Democratic Rep Nancy Pelosi of California, who will become House speaker next month, said: ''Members of Congress have a responsibility to protect their employees, especially young pages who serve this institution so well.

The investigation found that concerns about the behavior of some on Capitol Hill were not confined to Foley. A former clerk testified he thought Rep Jim Kolbe of Arizona, the only openly gay Republican in Congress, ''spent far too much time socially interacting with the pages.'' Kolbe, who has long planned to retire this year, has denied any wrongdoing.

REUTERS PB RK1045