Hastert dismisses call for his resignation

WASHINGTON — Speaker Dennis Hastert brushed aside any suggestion of resignation on Tuesday as House Republican leaders struggled to contain the fallout from an election-year scandal involving sexually explicit messages from a disgraced lawmaker to underage male pages.

Hastert issued a written statement as Majority Leader John Boehner said the speaker had assured him months ago the matter had been taken care of. "It's in his corner, it's his responsibility," Boehner, R-Ohio, said in an interview on radio station WLW in Cincinnati.

The lawmaker, former GOP Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, resigned abruptly on Friday and has since checked himself into an alcohol rehabilitation program at an undisclosed location.

His departure left behind a trail of questions concerning the e-mails and instant messages he had sent pages over an unknown period of time. Beyond the details of his actions, Republican leaders feared the impact on the Nov. 7 elections, and the possible loss of their House majority.

The Washington Times, a newspaper with a consistently conservative editorial page, called for Hastert's resignation, and at least one conservative activist has done likewise.

In response, Hastert's spokesman, Ron Bonjean, issued a statement that said the speaker "has and will lead the Republican conference to another majority in the 110th Congress."

Hastert and other leaders have laid out a complicated series of events. They say they first became aware of overly friendly e-mails from Foley to one underage male page last spring, but had no idea that the congressman had sent other, sexually explicit messages, to additional pages.

Even before then, Foley had been confronted in the fall of 2005 about his communications with the one page, and told to break off contact with him and all other pages. According to a weekend statement issued by Hastert's office, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who heads the page board, and the House clerk, met with the Florida lawmaker and told him to "immediately cease any communication" with the page.

Boehner, the second-ranking GOP leader, became the latest member of the party's high command to outline his involvement when he answered questions in his radio interview.

"I believe I talked to the speaker, and he told me it had been taken care of," he said, when asked about the e-mails that were not sexually explicit. He said that had occurred last spring.