USA: House Republican leader Dennis Hasterty refuses to step down

Embattled Republican leader Dennis Hastert on Thursday (October 5) outlined steps to investigate the House cybersex scandal and said he intends to stay in office despite calls for him to step down before the November elections. In an unusual nationally televised news conference at his home district office, the Illinois Republican said the "buck stopped" with him as House leader but that he and fellow Republicans acted immediately after learning last Friday of sexually explicit computer messages from Florida Republican Mark Foley to a teen-age congressional messenger. Foley quit the U.S. House of Representatives that day. Hastert apologised that the incident happened while adding: "I said I haven't done anything wrong." He acknowledged that "in retrospect" Republicans could have handled the situation better but said he intends to remain in office and seek re-election as Speaker of the House in January. The scandal has made it more likely that the Republicans will lose seats and possibly their majority in the November 7 congressional elections, prompting some conservatives to call for Hastert to quit. On Capitol Hill, the House Ethics Committee held a special session and announced that they will launch an investigation to the scandal. "There appears to be something that has gone terribly wrong and because of that we think its a deep concern to every member of the committee," said California Democrat Howard Berman at a news conference. President George W. Bush did not discuss Foley or Hastert publicly on Thursday (October 5). At a White House news conference, spokesman Tony Snow refused to go into details about how the scandal should be dealt with in the House. "The President has made it absolutely clear that the behaviour that has been reported on the part of former Representative Mark Foley is disgusting and unacceptable; he supports House Speaker Dennis Hastert's calls for a full and thorough investigation. As far as speculating about what people on the House ought to do to accomplish those ends, that's up to members of the House, we're not going to get into it. As far as what speculation we may have about other members of Congress, we're not getting into that either," said Snow.

ITN Source | October 6, 2006

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