Mark Foley Congressional Page Incident - Foley's Response

Foley's Response

After the initial e-mails had been publicized, Foley's office confirmed that Foley had sent the messages but said they were innocuous, and accused his election opponent of orchestrating a smear.

Shortly after being questioned by ABC about the more explicit IMs—and before they had been publicly revealed—Foley resigned from Congress. The congressman issued a statement, saying, "I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent."

Kirk Fordham, Chief of Staff to Representative and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds of New York, and former Chief of Staff to Foley, said that he was with Foley when ABC confronted him with the explicit IMs. Fordham said that he asked Foley if they were authentic, and that Foley replied, "Probably." According to Newsweek, Foley "knew he was finished." Fordham then visited GOP headquarters to inform Hastert and Reynolds; he returned with a one-sentence resignation letter that Foley signed. A short time later, Foley submitted his resignation to Governor Jeb Bush and left the capital.

Once the scandal broke in full, Foley had virtually no chance of staying in Congress. Hastert and Reynolds let it be known that if Foley did not sign the resignation letter, they would have sought his expulsion from the House. Polls showed him losing badly to his Democratic challenger, businessman Tim Mahoney.

On October 2, Foley checked himself into a rehabilitation clinic for alcoholism. On October 3 Foley's lawyer stated, "Mark Foley has never, ever had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor in his life. He is absolutely, positively not a pedophile." He also stated that Foley himself was a victim of sexual assault by an unnamed clergyman as a child, that the inappropriate conversations were the result of a secret alcohol problem and primarily occurred while Foley was intoxicated, and that Foley is gay. Previously, when confronted with speculations that he was gay, Foley labeled them "revolting and unforgivable". However, Foley's homosexuality had been an open secret in Washington for many years.