House majority leader: It's the speaker's problem

John Boehner lays responsbility for Foleygate at Dennis Hastert's door.

Published October 3, 2006 5:14PM (EDT)

Did we speak too soon?

We still haven't heard any high-profile House Republicans go on record with a call for Dennis Hastert to step aside as speaker, but House Majority Leader John Boehner sure laid the blame for Foleygate right at his door this morning. "I believe I talked to the speaker and he told me it had been taken care of," Boehner said in a radio interview. "My position is it's in his corner, it's his responsibility. The clerk of the House who runs the page program, the Page Board -- all report to the speaker. And I believe it had been dealt with."

As ABC News notes, Boehner has his own problems in the Foley case. He learned about Foley's e-mail exchange with a 16-year-old House page in the spring, and he can't seem to get his story straight about what he did with the knowledge. He said last week that he'd told Hastert about the issue, then he backtracked and said he wasn't sure that he told Hastert, and now he's saying that he "believes" that he told Hastert after all.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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